NBA

Deron Williams dunks (maybe) as Nets stop Suns

For much of this season, the idea of dunking wasn’t even a consideration for Deron Williams. Playing with a pair of seemingly perpetually sprained ankles, Williams was having trouble staying on the court, let alone dunking over defenders.

But that finally changed midway through the fourth quarter of Monday’s 108-95 win, when he rose up over Suns guard Ish Smith.

Or did it?

“Well, we’re trying to debate if that was a dunk,” Nets coach Jason Kidd said with a smile afterwards. “You have to ask him if that was a dunk. … I have to go back and look at the tape.”

When informed of Kidd’s comments, Williams shook his head in mock disgust.

“[Your] coach is supposed to have your back,” he said with a smile. Then he added, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “He’s supposed to say something like, ‘I’m proud of him. That’s a monumental moment.’ … something. And [Kidd] was never a dunker in his day.”

Everyone was all smiles after the win, and not just because the Nets (34-31) had just wrapped their ninth straight home win, and improved to 8-2 in their last 10 games. It was because the team’s franchise point guard, the player Kidd said when he took the job last summer would be the engine that drives his team forward, is finally beginning to look like that kind of player again.

In many ways, Monday night’s performance for Williams — who finished with 28 points on 11-for-13 shooting to go along with four assists — was just the latest sign his second season in Brooklyn is beginning to look eerily similar to the first. Like last year, Williams spent the first half of the season battling ankle issues, eventually missing a few games in order to get a round of platelet rich plasma treatment and cortisone shots in both ankles.

And, like last season, it appears the treatment has been a success, as Williams has regained the explosiveness and confidence he seemed to lack during his injury-filled first half of the year. That was on display repeatedly against the Suns (38-29) as he went up against one of the league’s more explosive backcourts in Goran Dragic and Eric Bledsoe and had his way against them. He broke off several devastating crossovers that left one defender after another in his wake. Williams looked as explosive as he has all season.

“Yeah, I’m definitely feeling better,” he said. “I’m still not jumping that high, as you can tell, but I’m definitely feeling better and more confident every day and trying to get that confidence to continue.”

He has shown that confidence more and more lately, as his fourth quarter dunk was just his latest attempt to finally get one this season, after taking all the way until April to get his first dunk last year. His last attempt was late in the second quarter of Saturday’s loss in Washington when he took off towards the rim only to find himself slamming the ball off the front of the rim after jumping from too far away.

This time, he almost suffered the same fate, but managed to just get the ball over the rim, earning approval from the team’s top dunker, rookie Mason Plumlee.

“I’m going to give it to him,” Plumlee said while grinning from ear-to-ear. “He’s gone up about three times now with great courage … but this one, if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying.

“It rattled in, so he didn’t get the flush, but he got the dunk. There’s a difference. He got the dunk.”

Williams’ performance highlighted a dominant team-wide effort, which saw all five starters finish in double-figures as the Nets shot over 58 percent from the field, collected 52 points in the paint and outscored the younger, faster Suns 20-11 in fast-break points in a game the Nets never trailed.

The catalyst for it all was Williams who, when he’s playing las he did Monday, makes the Nets a dangerous team to face.

“He was aggressive, assertive, he was in the right spots, picking and choosing,” said teammate Shaun Livingston. “When he’s rolling like that, we’re a tough team. It makes everybody better.”