From Deseret News archives:

Utah Jazz's best yet to come?

DWill says Rockets have yet to face 'the right stuff'

Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008 12:43 a.m. MDT
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It's for that reason that the Jazz don't seem totally sold on the suggestion that someone — either Boozer, an All-Star the last two years, or Williams, a budding All-Star, or perhaps Okur, an All-Star last season — has to become a picture of perfect playoff production, even if not in this round then certainly down the postseason road.

"Honestly, however you get a win you get it," Harpring said. "Whether it's you ride a guy, or someone steps up, or whatever happens — if you get a win and it's ugly, it's still a win. It doesn't matter, and you move on. You really don't look back in the playoffs."

"When you have enough talent on a team, it can be both," Kirilenko added. "We can be good as a team, we can be hot as one guy — and we have, like, five or six guys that can get hot in a particular different game. So I think it really doesn't matter. I think we really need to be team first, then get the guy who's hot."

Boozer, who had four 30-plus-point playoff games last year, spells out the philosophy with even more specificity.

"For us, each game is gonna pose different challenges for us," he said. "I mean, there's gonna be games where we're gonna explode and me and DWill (Williams) will have 30 points each. Most games we're gonna have 20. But there's gonna come a game when Memo (Okur) is gonna have 30, Matty (Harpring) have 25, Paul (Millsap) may have 20.

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"You know, you expect us (he and Williams) to play well," Boozer added. "But the great thing about it is we have guys that come off the bench, or even guys that start, that give us a huge lift. Like A.K. (Kirilenko) in the first game."

So it may be nitpicking to ask for more from Williams and Boozer.

But they were the Jazz's top two scorers throughout the regular season, with Boozer averaging 21.1 points and Williams 18.8.

Beyond that, Boozer averaged 23.5 points and Williams 19.2 points in the playoffs last year.

And one of the two either held or shared team-high scoring honors in all but one of Utah's 17 games last postseason.

With that perhaps in mind, then, Williams readily concedes that consistency from the stars is a reasonable expectation as the playoffs roll on.

"You need those guys to be constants, and I think me and Booz need to be those guys. Even Memo, I think, a little bit," he said. "Then you've got to have other guys, just everybody else, playing well."


E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com

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Image
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Jazz guard Deron Williams is surrounded by the media and dwarfed by a Utah logo as he speaks prior to Wednesday practice. Williams suggested that the Rockets have yet to see him and teammate Carlos Boozer at their playoff best.

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