Williams leads Jazz to 4 Point win,3-1 lead

After 11 postseason games between Utah and Houston the past two years, Tracy McGrady apparently still does not know how to correctly say "Deron Williams.''
"It doesn't matter, man,'' Williams said when asked about just that after the Jazz's 86-82 Game 4 victory over the Rockets on Saturday. "There's a lot of people who don't know how to pronounce my first name.''
It's DARE-in, not Da-RON -- and folks might want to learn.
Williams, after all, is the motor that makes the Jazz go -- and his Game 4 play is a huge reason Utah, now up 3-1, is one victory away from wrapping up the first-round series.
He did miss two critical free throws with 7.3 seconds remaining.
But Williams, who shot 6-of-11 from the field, was chiefly responsible for negating a second straight fourth-quarter Jazz collapse.
"He stayed with what we were doing,'' Utah coach Jerry Sloan said of two key final-quarter buckets by Williams.
"[Assistant] Coach [Phil] Johnson suggested we let him have the ball in the middle of the floor,'' Sloan added, "and he made a couple of great plays that kind of revved us up.''
Though pained by an assortment of bumps and bruises, including a sprained sacroiliac joint that limited his mobility when Utah took Games 1 and 2, the Jazz point guard had nine assists and a team-high 17 points Saturday.
That includes eight points during a fourth quarter in which Houston trimmed what had been a 16-point Utah lead in the third quarter to as little as one, and to two with 15.2 seconds to go.
The back-to-back baskets by Williams with about two-and-a-half minutes left in the fourth provided Utah a much-needed cushion, and both -- a driving dunk and a layup -- exemplified the multifaceted nature of Williams' game.
He may not be able to break out of Chris Paul's shadow when it comes to MVP talk or head-to-head comparison debate, but the built-like-a-bull Williams can dish, drive or stop and pop at the drop of a dime.
"Coach made a great adjustment at the time -- coach Sloan, and coach Johnson,'' he said of a break preceding the two aforementioned baskets. "They were doubling me pretty hard on the pick-and-roll, and it made it hard for me to get a shot off or get it back to [Carlos Boozer].
"So we kind of faked the screen and just let me take (Rockets point Rafer Alston) 1-on-1,'' Williams added, "and I was able to get by him two straight possessions.''
Even if not sure of the first name, then, McGrady and the Rockets were bound to see "Williams'' blur by on the back.