Maybe I should take a few hours before writing this one.

I’m so frustrated at the moment that I’m not sure I can give a decent analysis of this game. I’m frustrated at a lot of things — the refs, Manu Ginobili, the refs, Tony Parker, every Jazz player not named Deron Williams, the refs, our fans for losing their cool and throwing things, the refs…

See, I’m already doing it and I promised myself I wouldn’t. I promised myself that I would write about how we should have pulled ahead in the third quarter, or early in the fourth. I promised myself I’d write about San Antonio’s stifling, (mostly) clean defense, one of the best team defensive performances I have ever seen. I promised myself I’d write about D-Will’s heroic play, how he would not be denied, how he has proven that he is the best player on EITHER team in this series. I want to write about all these things. I hope my frustration burns out quickly enough so I can.

But I have to say this: 27 Jazz fouls to 17 Spurs fouls. Manu Ginobili made 11 out of 13 free throws in the fourth quarter alone. As a team, the Spurs shot 21 more free throws than the Jazz. One Jazz player fouled out, another was ejected (without saying a single word to a referee, possibly a first in NBA history), another got two fouls in three seconds and then a technical foul as he walked AWAY from the referees. Look at the box score if you don’t believe me, and show me any other statistical category that had an impact on this game. (Okay, turnovers. But not points OFF OF turnovers.)

Whose home court is this, anyway?

Opponents will point to the fact that the Jazz interior defense was too slow, Spur players like Parker and Ginobili too aggressive and too fast. They will say that the Jazz shot fewer free throws because they simply didn’t take the ball in. They will say that Carlos Boozer should have played more like the “Beast” everyone says he is and forced the issue in the paint.

They are right, up to a point. I won’t dispute that.

But the officials set the tone in the first half by giving Boozer two fouls in the first quarter, and by letting San Antonio abuse Paul Millsap inside, making him skittish the rest of the game. The one place the Jazz have an advantage over the Spurs is interior depth. The referees negated that advantage by allowing Parker and Ginobili to throw themselves in the general direction of the basket and bailing them out with fouls on Utah big men.

I know that writing this sort of thing undermines my credibility. It makes me sound too much like a fan and not enough like an intelligent observer. But dammit, I’m sick of shooting fewer free throws than our opponents AT HOME (the fourth time it has happened this postseason). And I’m sick of seeing out-of-control dribble penetration tolerated, even promoted. We saw this sort of play unduly rewarded last year with Dwyane Wade in the NBA Finals. We are seeing it again now. And it’s a shame.

It’s a shame because Deron Williams has the heart of a lion. He owns this Jazz team, and is trying to lead by example, but didn’t get enough help from his teammates, even from Boozer, whose decent numbers belied his impact on the game (he didn’t have much of one). You can see it in his eyes — the hunger. The desire. He reminds me of (and I don’t want to do this, because I know D-Will is his own player and I don’t want to compare, but I’m going to say it anyway) John Stockton, the way his mouth would get tighter and tighter the more he wanted to win, to control the game, to impose his will upon it. With Deron, there’s no visual appearance of that intensity, except in his eyes. To see the defeat in those same eyes as he walked off the court, and to know that it wasn’t his fault, is almost too painful to bear.

If (when) the Jazz go on to lose this series, there will be at least one positive outcome. This series will show, once and for all, that this is Deron’s team. This is the series that will mold him into a leader of men. This will teach him how to motivate his team, to raise their play to a higher level (because it takes more than assists to actually make your teammates better). And it will motivate his teammates to put it all on the floor for him, because they see how much it kills him to lose. And that will make Deron Williams a far more dangerous player, and the Utah Jazz a far more dangerous team.

Hope? Yeah, I still have hope. We have one more game. This loss could be the boost we need to get over the hump in San Antonio. It isn’t over yet. But when it is, win or lose, I can at least look back on tonight and on this series and say, “I was there for the birth of a superstar.”

I guess, in the long run, that’s not so bad.

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Layton Shumway is the chief copy editor for BYU’s Daily Universe newspaper. You can reach him at lss83@byu.net.