When the Sixers took an 82-80 lead on a long jump shot by Lou Williams with 8.8 seconds remaining in regulation, it was D. Williams who forced overtime with a tough driving layup with 1.9 seconds left. Then, in the overtime, after the Sixers took a 90-88 lead on a steal and dunk by Holiday, Williams tied it with a fadeaway, 17-foot jumper over both Holiday and Jodie Meeks. After a Meeks missed three at the other end, Williams followed with a trey from 26 feet over Meeks and the Nets were on their way to their sixth win in 19 games.
"Deron Williams, to say the least, was absolutely sensational tonight," said Sixers coach Doug Collins. "That was the best performance we've seen from a guard this year. He was not going to let them lose that game, big shot after big shot."
There were a few other factors that factored into the final score. Collins had to play most of the last quarter and overtime without a true big man. Already shorthanded due to injured Spencer Hawes (Achilles' strain) and Nikola Vucevic (quad strain), Collins had to play most of overtime without Elton Brand (16 points) after he fouled out and minus Thaddeus Young (10 points), who fell hard on his back early in the fourth quarter and left for the locker room for a brief period. Young was walking quite gingerly after the game as he went for treatment.
"Really, the key to the game was they had us playing at their pace," Collins said. "Their guards controlled the game the entire night and we got off to a horrible start, down 9-2, then the opening of the third quarter, where I think it was 10-4. So that's 19-6. We really got off to two starts that really hurt us.
"All of our big guys are banged up. Thad fell on his back. I had to play basically five guards in the second half. With all that said, we get a steal, [go] up two and it looked like we had a chance to win the game."
