Jazz 'D' falls flat in Big D

DALLAS — With the Jazz wilting away in yet another defensive debacle away from home, Deron Williams took matters into his hands.

No matter how hard he may have worked to will a victory out of here, however, two much-more dominant factors could not be overcome.

Too much Josh Howard. Too few stops.

Williams scored a career-high 41 points on Saturday night at sold-out American Airlines Center, but Howard countered with a career-high 47 points and 10 rebounds to help the Dallas Mavericks hold off Utah 125-117.

It was the third straight road loss for the 13-8 Jazz, who have yielded 100-plus points in each of their last five defeats away outside of EnergySolutions Arena — including, now, the Mavs' season-high.

And it was enough to leave Williams wishing he had more help than power forward Carlos Boozer's 25-point effort.

"We definitely need everybody to show up for us to have a chance to win," the Jazz point guard said after shooting 13-of-20 from the field and 12-of-13 from the free-throw line.

"We're best when we're sharing the ball, when everybody's getting involved," added Williams, who scored 32 of his 41 after halftime. "I don't want to have to score 40 points. But I also don't want to lose by 20, so I have to assert myself when I see we're stagnant."

And that wasn't hard at all to see Saturday.

Though the Jazz shot 60.5 percent from the field themselves, they also allowed the 13-8 Mavs to hit 59.7 percent — and to make a decisive 9-of-16 shots from behind the 3-point line, including four from Howard alone.

"We couldn't stop their penetration," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said, "and that played into their hands on 3-point shooting.

"It looked like we didn't really want to win the ballgame until we went to a smaller lineup," added Sloan, who for a stretch — with starting center Mehmet Okur on the bench and Boozer battling foul trouble — had undersized backup power forward Paul Millsap playing center and starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko at power forward. "And all of a sudden guys starting moving thinking they're gonna get the basketball, get to be a part of what's going on, and they got involved and we got some good shots and got some good passes."

Utah allowed Dallas to go up by as many as 16 points with less than three minutes left in the third quarter, but that's when Williams decided enough was enough.