Brad Rock: Jazz returning to the days of beating the Lakers and Spurs

While Spurs' stars are aging, it isn't like the franchise has failed to adapt. Its new motto: It takes a village. A very big one, in fact. The Spurs now represent more nations than NATO. Whatever the country, someone on the team is a hometown hero. Let's see, there's the Virgin Islands (Duncan), France (Parker, Nando De Colo, Boris Diaw), Argentina (Ginobili), Brazil (Tiago Splitter) and Australia (Patty Mills).

This just in: The Spurs are hoping to round things out by finding a small forward from Greenland.

As for the Jazz, they're just a bunch of guys from the neighborhood.

Still, it would be hard to find a better time for the Jazz to come strong, considering their schedule. December's slate includes such dangerous opponents as Miami, Memphis, Golden State (yes, Golden State) and the Clippers. The Jazz opened a nine-point lead at the close of the first half on Wednesday, thanks largely to some well-timed 3-pointers, then closed the game out with Williams' basket.

Thus they moved ahead.

Curiously, it seemed as they did so, they were also looking back.

email: rock@desnews.com