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Deron Williams sucked in some air and exhaled deeply in the fourth quarter of the Jazz's game late Thursday night with San Antonio. What he was thinking in that exact moment only Madame Zelda, or some other trained mind reader, would suppose to know. But the rest of us could guess.
There might have been relief banging around in there somewhere.
The first week of this season had been a tough go for the Jazz's best player, lifted at last by an important win at EnergySolutions Arena, 113-99, over the Spurs. Williams has never suffered defeat easily. He would just as soon get kicked in the head as lose a game, let alone endure three losses in the first four games -- before this victory. And that's one of his best attributes. It's also one of his biggest weaknesses.
Maybe the most pathetic adjective that can be hung on a young NBA multimillionaire is an adjective that sounds a lot like that last one: apathetic.
That's not Williams.
He's something of a competitive nut job, an anomaly in that fans can relate to him and empathize with him because he cares as much as they do, and they can plainly see that.
In all the Jazz defeats thus far, on the road to Denver and Dallas, and at home to Houston, he looked frustrated, angry, disgusted.
On Thursday night, he looked as though somebody had pulled a Bentley off his back.
The Jazz started strong against the Spurs, playing defense, sharing the ball, making shots,
In the wake of the aforementioned losses, Williams had talked candidly about his team, its predicament and play. He said the Jazz are what they are, and now they had to make the most of it. He said the Jazz had to give everything they've got for four quarters. He said they had to get stops. They had to help each other out.
That they did against the Spurs.
Team chemistry had become an issue. At the center of that was the ongoing presence of Carlos Boozer, a man who talked last summer like he didn't want to be here and who too often had played thus far like ... he doesn't want to be here.
Question is, Do his teammates want him to be here?
They did Thursday night.
Boozer finally showed up, with needed scoring (27 points) and rebounding (14). He even tied up Tim Duncan for a couple of jump balls.
Either way, looking ahead, the Jazz have to, as Williams indicated earlier, make the most of what they got, which was his cryptic way of saying they had to make the most of a compromised situation.
That situation at last got better.
Funny, it was Boozer who stressed togetherness on Thursday, saying: "We can't fall apart. When you start losing here or there, some guys go different ways . ... The only way we get out of it is if we fight together as a group and come out of it together."
Williams, not Boozer, will have to blaze that trail.
He's going to have a big season, just like his big night -- 27 points, nine assists, seven boards -- against the Spurs. He'll do that a lot this year. His team will need him to do so. But he'll also have to harness his competitiveness to help an imperfect team live up to its potential.
He'll have to buoy up his teammates when they make mistakes in order to keep hope alive. And it's more than just curbing impatience on his part. He has to straight-up perform when everybody else sags.
Truth is, Williams has more influence on and sway with Jazz players than Jerry Sloan ever will. This is his team, even though its current makeup and its fundamental personnel flaws he had little control over.
It's a heavy burden, then, that Williams carries.
A burden he has to haul, a burden that Jazz management has dumped his way by surrounding him with an incomplete bunch, a team this season that has varying designs and, in some cases, selfish motivations.
All while Williams' personal agenda is clear -- to Madame Zelda and everybody else: Just win.
GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.
