Utah Jazz win a thriller over Spurs on Mo Williams' 3-point buzzer-beater

SALT LAKE CITY — What started out as John Stockton Day ended up as Mo Williams Night in Utah.

It didn't have the significance of the infamous "Uh, oh" moment in Houston when Stockton hit a 3-pointer to put the Utah Jazz into the NBA Finals for the first time back in 1997, but Williams drained a long ball at the buzzer in the waning moments of 12/12/12.

The Stockton-like swish put 18,710 fans into a thrilled frenzy.

It made for an easy "SportsCenter" highlight on the late-night ESPN-televised game.

And the 26-foot bomb gave the Jazz their most significant win of the 2012-'13 season — a thrilling 99-96 come-from-behind-and-ahead-and-behind-again victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

"It's great — not only for him but for everybody," an elated Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin said. "This team is working extremely hard to get better and we're showing some growth together as a group. And it's great to get a reward like this tonight."

Williams' shot more than made up for his miss only seconds earlier and also helped the Jazz erase the Spurs' eight-point lead with under four minutes to go.

"I think we all knew he was going to take it after he missed that (previous) one," Jazz shooting guard Gordon Hayward said. "He was going to step up and shoot it with confidence. We had faith in him and he knocked it down."

That gave the Jazz their fourth victory in a row and helped them make up for their 110-100 loss in San Antonio earlier this season, giving Utah only its second win in 13 tries against the ageless Spurs.

Williams' heroic moment wouldn't have been possible without the rebound of the year by Paul Millsap. The 6-foot-8 forward, who had a game-high 24 points with 12 boards, hauled in a miss by Williams with 8.3 seconds remaining, giving the Jazz the ball and one last shot after calling a timeout with 6.7 seconds left.

"We wanted the last shot," Corbin said. "We wanted Mo to have the ball in his hands."

The Jazz hoped to create an inside look with a pick-and-roll, but Williams kept the ball well beyond the 3-point line as time dwindled down.

With just enough time to unleash a long game-winning attempt, Williams coolly dribbled forward, stopped behind the arc and released a perfectly placed shot.

"My look was watching the clock and watching Mo and watching the clock and watching Mo and then watched that ball go through the basket as the clock went off," Corbin said, smiling. "Watching him run down the floor with his hands in the air was just tremendous, man."

It put a sweet finish on an otherwise forgettable night for Williams, who only made 3-of-9 shots and scored eight points. In fact, he didn't re-enter the game until 4:50 remained in the fourth quarter — a move by Corbin that so happened to coincide with the Jazz dominating the Spurs down the stretch.

"It showed how much my teammates believe in me, showed how much the coaches believe in me," Williams said. "It was a tough night shooting for me, missed a couple shots down the stretch that I felt good about. They came back to me and it shows how much confidence they have in me."

Somewhere, a certain Hall of Famer had to be smiling — if, that is, Stockton stayed up that late to watch the game that didn't end until about 11 p.m MST.

"He felt he should've made the one just before. Paul did a great job of getting the offensive rebound to give us a chance to win the game," Corbin added. "He's a big-shot guy."

Things started Wednesday as you would expect, considering the Spurs had beaten the Jazz 11 of 12 times coming into this showdown.