"I think that is the mental part that we're going to get to — trust in your ability, trust in your confidence, trust in your offense, and play it out."

Ronnie Brewer's development. Andrei Kirilenko's improvement. Williams' tremendous growth.

For all that did go wrong, much about the season left the Jazz feeling all right.

"We have the makeup of a helluva team, a team that can win a championship and get to the Finals one day," Boozer said.

"You know, we have everything. It's just, like, a matter of 'keep our game.' Sometimes we kind of can't stick with the plan," Kirilenko added. "I think if we just play our game we can beat anybody and we can win the title. But it's only words right now."

Yet words to live by.

"This basketball team here has a good future, if they work at it and put their heart into it," Sloan said. "And we've done a lot of that. But it's, 'What did you do for me today?'

"Hopefully," he added, "we keep all these guys together and try it again."

There is, after all, more progress to be made, more games to be won.

"You'd like to take that giant step, but this is who we are," Sloan said. "You kind of have to do it in stages, and sometimes there's a lot of bitter with the sweet. We've got to try to keep working to keep that bitter taste out of our mouth."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com