D Will

After last night's close victory, the Jazz are now up 3-1 against the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. Their success is primarily due to one man: Deron Williams. Leaving aside his two critical free throw misses down the stretch in Game 4, his play during this series has been nearly flawless. Just check out the stats. Nearly every other Jazz player has recently suffered a fairly major drop in offensive production (see Boozer, Carlos). That's not a huge surprise, as Houston is one of the top defensive teams in the league and, in general, the playoffs feature rougher play and more no-calls.

But amazingly, D Will's numbers -- as good as they've always been -- have actually significantly increased since the end of the regular season. He's shooting 55% from the field, 58% percent from beyond the arc and is averaging 22 points a game (tops on the team and 3 points more than his regular season clip). For the Jazz to make a deep run this year, more players are going to have to take a page from D Will's book.