Santa D-Will assists with Christmas cheer
3-POINT SHOTS on the generosity of Deron Williams – and not just on the court – and on the less-meaningful 94-85 win over Memphis that he helped his team pick up Monday:
POINT 1: On Sunday, I had the pleasure of covering Deron and Amy Williams’ annual charity Christmas Dinner, which allowed me to write a non-sports sports story about the positive influence a professional athlete made in the lives of people away from the court.
Seeing the look of appreciation on single mothers’ faces and the smiling, excited children was heart-warming.
Williams, his wife, friends and other volunteers, the Jazz star’s Point of Hope Foundation and Seven Still Waters – the nonprofit organization that helps single moms and children, even with things like literacy – deserve kudos for sharing the spirit of the season with 60 people in need of help and happiness.
Seven Still Waters founder Michael White expressed his gratitude to the Williamses in a quote that I wasn’t able to use for the article Monday and again in a nice follow-up e-mail.
White on Sunday: “Words can’t express just the joy that I feel about this and just the generosity (of) Deron and Amy. It’s indescribable.”
A thankful White on Tuesday: “I feel like we’ve already had Christmas.”
White also received gratitude for his organization – www.sevenstillwaters.org or www.7sw.org – from one of the families it helped out recently. A few months ago, Mindee Elmore, a North Ogden single mother with two children, had to miss work to spend time with her sick 9-year-old daughter. For Elmore, missing work meant missing out on money, which meant more hard times for her family.
When Elmore contacted Seven Still Waters on a friend’s referral, White was sympathetic and generous to her family’s situation. Her daughter was able to have a birthday party thanks to 7SW.
“Sometimes it just feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders being a single parent,” said Elmore, whose mother and mother-in-law both passed away in the past year, making her plight all the more difficult.
“But I just keep going and keep going and then it catches up to me. So when Michael helped me out, I just couldn’t believe it.”
Elmore was equally grateful for Williams, whose foundation provided her kids with presents and a free dinner at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse.
“It definitely gives me a whole new perspective on Deron. He’s not just a basketball player … he’s a generous human being,” Elmore said. “And he has compassion, and it’s made us really happy.”
Perhaps it was karma that helped Williams score 27 points with eight assists in leading the Jazz to a win the next day. (And you’ve got to love photograher Scott Winterton’s great photo of D-Will having fun with a little girl at the dinner table.)
POINT 2: The Jazz have been on a defensive tear, and that continued in this one. Their offense might have been ugly as a mud fence in a rainstorm, but their defense was superb. Again. For the 10th game in a row, Utah held its opponent below 100 points. While Utah only shot 42 percent, Memphis was held to 41.8 percent overall and 9.1 percent from 3-point range.
Andrei Kirilenko‘s defense, in particular, was complimented in the locker room. The Grizzlies’ standout missed even more shots than the frigid A.K., going 8-for-22 from the field (Kirilenko was 1-for-10).
“I think A.K. and those guys did a great job on him,” center Al Jefferson said. “They made him shoot contested shots. Even great shooters struggle a bit, but I think we did a good job.”
Added C.J. Miles, who helped out on Gay: “A.K. did a great job. I just tried to make it tough on him, make him take tough shots.”
POINT 3: Paul Millsap (3-for-11, seven points) and Jefferson (5-for-13, 12 points) each had rough nights.
What really proved helpful for the Jazz – considering their missing offensive interior production – were a couple of sharpshooting games from D-Will’s wingmen, Raja Bell (14 points) and Miles (20 points, including 15 in the second quarter).
Bell had his hottest game of the season, hitting 5 of 7 shots and going a sizzling 4-for-5 from 3-point land. In the locker room after the game, the 11-year veteran even teased a reporter (not yours truly) for asking about the Jazz’s lack of a “knockdown shooter.” (Keep in mind, Bell does have the same 3-point percentage minus 1/1,000th of a percentage point as Kyle Korver – .410 vs. .411).