Giricek finally ready to play

[RonnieBrewer (Ronnie Brewer)]

Jazz Notes: Giricek finally ready to play
By Phil Miller
The Salt Lake Tribune

Carlos Boozer's balky hamstring took more than four months to heal last season.
Turns out, Boozer was the healthy one.

Gordan Giricek's Achilles' tendon didn't stop shooting pain through his legs
for nearly eight months, the Jazz guard said Monday. From the day he was
injured just before last Thanksgiving, Giricek was hobbled by the calf injury
until mid-July - a stretch, Giricek admits, that had him wondering whether he
would ever be whole again.

   "I was a little scared. I couldn't do anything too hard, or it hurt
again," Giricek said Monday. "It hurt for a long time."

That's partly because he assumed the injury wasn't especially severe, so he
kept playing despite the pain. Giricek sat out only four games in December and
just one in January - even had a couple of encouraging games, like a 23-point
night against Philadelphia just before New Year's - before the tendon became
too tender to continue.

"It was terrible. I come off the screens and I couldn't jump," Giricek said.
"I couldn't push equally on both legs, so it was hard to shoot."

He didn't play a game in February, March or April, but worried when all the
rest wasn't having much of an effect by late May. He stuck to conditioning
work, lifted some weights, and waited.

Finally, by early July, he felt OK, and when the Jazz summoned him to Salt
Lake for an MRI, the test proved the injury was gone. "It took me a week to
get back up to full speed," Giricek said. "Now it's 100 percent. I can run,
I can cut. It's a good feeling." 


Mad at the French 

Andrei Kirilenko took a break from his conditioning over the summer to travel
to Berlin for the finale of the World Cup soccer championship, won by the
Italians. He was shocked to witness French star Zinedine Zidane headbutt
Italy's Marco Materazzi, which earned him an ejection from the title game.

   "You're a professional. You can't let him take you out of your game,"
Kirilenko said.

   How would he react if an opponent tried to provoke him?

   "I don't even pay attention. Ignore it," he said. "On the basketball court,
I have so much trash talking during the game, if I start reacting to every one,
I will never play. I will sit suspended every time."


Briefly

   Kirilenko and his wife Masha taped an interview Sunday afternoon for the
Tyra Banks Show, and Masha will travel to Los Angeles later this week to
appear in studio with the former model and current talk-show host. The topic
inevitably turned to Masha's famous "one-night pass," her admission that she
has given her husband permission to stray once a year. But Kirilenko said he
didn't have much to say about it. And what does he think of Tyra Banks, who
wasn't present for the taped segment? "I don't know who she is," he said with
a shrug. An airing date for the syndicated show has not yet been set. . . .

Center Mehmet Okur says he feels "great, better than ever," after a minor back
injury kept him from playing for the Turkish national team. Okur says his
health may allow him to change his game slightly this season. "More inside
this year," predicted Okur, who led the Jazz with 18 points per game last
season. "I'm stronger. I 'll use my inside game more than last couple of years.

 [e-mail]

http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_4434786

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