In Game 1 of the 2007 Western Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs the San Antonio Spurs, playing at home, beat the Utah Jazz 108-100. Here's what Jazz point guard Deron Williams, who exploded in the second half and finished with 34 points, seven rebounds and nine assists on 13-of-23 shooting, said after the game:

Q. Jerry Sloan said you guys in the first half were blaming each other when stuff went wrong.

DERON WILLIAMS: On the court you can see guys getting discouraged when we got down close to 20 points. That's something you can't do against a team like this. 20 points, to a team like this, is 40 points to another team. You might be able to make a couple runs and get it down but it is just tough to overcome that.

Q. Jerry also said that he thought you might as a team have been a little intimidated. What changed? Was it his message of don't be intimidated?

DERON WILLIAMS: It was a combination of that and we don't want to get blown off the floor in the first game. I think the first game is when you are supposed to send a message. And I don't think we did that especially in the first half. I think we battled back in the second half and it showed a lot about us. You can't come back to a team like this when you get down 20 points in the first half.

Q. Deron, can you speak about your second half performance. I thought it was brilliant and did you do a good job getting to the buckets and getting the shots you wanted? Is that the kind of game you expect to play throughout the series?

DERON WILLIAMS: I hope so. I tried to be a little more aggressive. Guys were struggling from the field a little bit so I tried to get going offensively. I got a couple jumpers in there. The lane opened up a lot in the second half. I tried to get down and draw some fouls and things like that.

Q. Deron, are you almost getting tired of hearing, well you guys are young, you guys are inexperienced? At what point do you say it doesn't matter?

DERON WILLIAMS: Coach talked to us after the game that's what he said. We are not a young team anymore. There is no excuse. We have got this far so obviously we can compete. We just got to come ready next game. Like Carlos said, we had a great first quarter executing. Second quarter we came out and they were aggressive and we got timid. That's something we can't do. We have to keep battling for a full 48 minutes.

Q. Deron, why did your shots start falling in the second half there? You were more aggressive, you said?

DERON WILLIAMS: Yeah, I was definitely more aggressive. Like I said, some guys were struggling from the field so I tried to get going offensively and get some energy, give some guys some confidence. Like I said, the lane opened up. They were worried about Booze off screen and rolls so the lane was wide open for me so I took advantage of that.