Spurs focus hard on D-Will to disrupt Utah's offense

SAN ANTONIO — Deron Williams is making quite a name for himself in these NBA playoffs, averaging 29.5 points a game, 11 assists and 3.6 steals against the three-time champion San Antonio Spurs through the first four games.

So in that fourth game, Monday night at EnergySolutions Arena, the Spurs double-teamed the Utah Jazz's second-year point guard, trying to get the ball out of his hands.

"They confused us just a little bit with their double-team on the pick-and-roll," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "A couple times we made good plays off of it, but we hadn't seen it in a long time. Our guys were aware of it, but we didn't really react to the way they play it as well as we should have."

The result was some turnovers, bad passes and long jump shots , and that has Utah on the brink of elimination from the Western Conference Finals tonight at San Antonio's AT&T Center.

"We have a couple ways we can get the ball to the middle of the floor and try to hit the open man, but they did a good job of trying to double D-Will, especially in that fourth quarter, and get the ball out of his hands," said Jazz forward Carlos Boozer.

What's supposed to happen is that someone gets the ball from Williams near the free-throw line and barrels into the lane for layups, fouls and kickouts.

"They're at a weaker state when they have two of their better defenders on the perimeter with D-Will," Boozer said. "If we get the ball in the middle of the floor and try to attack and try to get to the open man, get some layups, hopefully they won't try to trap too much.

"Sometimes we settled for jump shots and just missed them."

Sloan said so much has been made of the fact that in most of these games with the Spurs, only Williams and Boozer are doing the scoring that some of the others "go to the other extreme and say, 'OK, I've got to prove that I'm a scorer.' That's the thing that concerns us a great deal. Instead of running our offense, you think, 'Well, I've got to take a shot because I've go the ball."'

There's no offensive rebounding, and the Spurs make the Jazz pay.

"Smart teams take you back down, they put you in the post, and they bury you after you try to take killer shots," Sloan said. "I understand the anxiety level. You think a 3-point shot is going to count 10 points."

Instead, it's two or three for the Spurs.