"Jazz starting center Mehmet Okur soon must undergo surgery to repair an Achilles tendon that ruptured Saturday night.

Okur sustained the devastating injury, which could sideline him even for the start of next season, driving to the basket in the second quarter of the Utah's Game 1 first-round NBA playoff series loss at Denver.

"I am very disappointed for my team and the fans," Okur said on his personal website. "For two years now the season has ended with injuries for me, and I don't think that this is something I deserve."

The Achilles had been giving Okur trouble for about two weeks — the Jazz called the injury "Achilles tendinitis" — and Okur received a local-anesthetic injection prior to Saturday's game.

On Sunday, Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor defended that decision.

"We would never have put a player in a compromising position," he said. "If there was any indication that the shot would have masked anything or done anything like that, we would have never done that.

"We'd never put a game ahead of a player's health. … That's not our DNA.

"To repeat and reiterate, I think it's important to know that we would not in any way, shape or form risk further injury, or a injury to a player for a game," O'Connor said. "That was certainly his call and, again, our doctors felt that … there wasn't any additional risk in doing that."

The existing injury, though, clearly was impacting Okur's play prior to the tear."