Most of the Jazz soon joined Boozer in getting their act together, though, as Williams made his point more ways than one, Okur made his mark with his defense on 7-foot-6 giant Yao Ming and Rockets star Tracy McGrady was made to wonder yet again why he's never gotten past the first round of postseason play.

Utah won Game 7 on the road in what wound up being Jeff Van Gundy's final game as coach in Houston, and the Jazz went on to face No. 8 seed Golden State — an upset winner over top-seeded Dallas — in a rough-and-tumble second-round series that Sloan's club took 4-1.

Winning the two series left the Jazz feeling awfully good, especially about the overall play of Williams and that of Boozer on the offensive end. Reality, however, resided right around the corner in the form of a San Antonio team that entered the postseason with three NBA titles since 1999.

10. FINGERPOINTING

The Jazz did win Game 3 at home against the Spurs, but with Okur's offensive game absent, Kirilenko out of synch and Utah's relative inexperience yielding way to Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and two-time NBA MVP Tim Duncan, it didn't take long for San Antonio to prevail 4-1.

Ugliness prevailed in Game 4 of the series, when Jazz fans en masse blamed referee Steve Javie for doing his job in Utah's lone home loss of the playoffs and several sore losers showered the floor at sold-out EnergySolutions Arena with debris.

After the classy Spurs wrapped up the series at home on May 30, Williams — outstanding throughout most of the postseason, but hobbled by a sore foot in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals — unloaded on unnamed teammates.

The Jazz point accused some of playing as if they'd taken an early vacation, and said he knew for a fact that some simply don't want to be in Utah. Later that same night, Boozer and Fisher attached themselves to Williams' remarks. Meanwhile, Kirilenko — identified as being among the presumed targets — just hours later shared his heartfelt sentiments with Russian media.

The resulting fallout: a rather ugly ending to what otherwise was a pretty good-looking season, and a multitude of issues leaving unanswered for now the question of whether or not the Jazz can put their differences aside and indeed dedicate themselves to being better in 2007-08.

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com