If Williams had another wish or two, he might have used it late in the fourth quarter. Getting caught up in screens and getting back to Fisher too late helped the ex-Jazz guard get and hit three wide-open looks from beyond the arc. Fisher's 10-point explosion in 1:14 gave the Lakers' new life and helped force the overtime.

"He just got hot at the end of the game," Williams said of Fisher.

Helping the Jazz not get too hot — under the collar in this case — after Okur was called for a technical foul with three minutes remaining was an assist Williams didn't get credit for in the boxscore. But Williams made sure they kept their cool.

He told his teammates, "We just have to stick together. We can't worry about the refs. You just got to let things go how they go, if they call a foul just keep playing."

And that, he said, is precisely what he and his teammates did after enduring the Lakers' rally.

"I think," Williams added, "we did a good job after that of staying composed, of keeping our poise and doing things we needed to do to win."

No offense to Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Tony Parker or Farmar, but as far as Ronnie Price is concerned there is no debate. The guy ahead of him on the Jazz's roster, Price believes strongly, is the best point guard in the NBA.

"All I can say is he's an All-Star," said Price, who also gave the Jazz a lift in his four-point, four-stitch outing. "Now I don't really think there's no point guard in the league that does the same type of things that he does on the court. He's fun to watch. Even better than that, he's on our team and not on the other team.

"I'm one of the biggest Deron Williams fans that there is out there."

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E-mail: jody@desnews.com