Fisher assumes any team he's played for would have had a deeply sympathetic reaction, "but I don't know if a team that I've been on in my career would have opened their arms the way these guys have. They've really been great the last several days."

All of them held the news from the public until Fisher returned from New York following the 6:30 a.m. surgery Wednesday.

When he entered the game, few in the crowd knew why he'd been gone, but certainly they sensed that he wouldn't have missed six quarters without good reason and gave him a thunderous standing ovation.

"That was one of the most heartfelt responses I've gotten in my career," Fisher said.

Ready to play

Coach Jerry Sloan worried Fisher might get injured coming cold into a game, but he held a roster spot open for him because the guard requested it. "He wanted to play. I was amazed that he played as well as he did, to be honest about it," Sloan said Thursday.

Fisher wanted to play — he told teammate Deron Williams earlier in the day that he'd be back by about 5 p.m., but Williams doubted it at the time. But, Fisher said, "that's what I do. It's not who I am, but it's what I do. You have something that hits you really hard, and you have to stand up and face it," Fisher said.

Having heard on the radio as they were driving in from the airport that Williams was in foul trouble and the other point guard, Dee Brown, had been taken to the hospital with a neck sprain, Fisher was aware the story was taking on immense meaning.

"Nobody could have planned that," he said.

"You can't write a better story," Williams agreed.

Leaving for Oakland with the team is difficult. "When you see your child, like yesterday, on the hospital table having to go through anesthesia and the tubes are hanging out and everything is happening, you don't know if you'll get her back. So then to think about leaving and not seeing her for a few days, you hope that that's not the last opportunity.

"We all think about tomorrow a lot, but tomorrow is never really promised to us. I'm comfortable in who I am and where I'm going, and if today was my last day or her last day, I could still feel great about the life that we've all lived together," he said.

But he also has the knowledge that "for now, we're as good as we can be in terms of how she feels and where she stands, and I think we can collectively as a family take a step back and relax a little bit and allow the prayers and support of everybody to try to kick in."

---

E-mail: lham@desnews.com