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. [email protected] http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_4434786 --

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