Williams not optimistic about Star vote

SALT LAKE CITY -- The NBA released its second set of All-Star voting totals on Thursday and Utah's Deron Williams was listed as No. 8 among Western Conference guards, with 208,991 votes.

Mehmet Okur was No. 10 among Western Conference centers, with 69,621 votes.

The All-Star game will be played Feb 14, 2010 in Dallas, not far from Williams' home town.

He said he hadn't seen the latest voting numbers and did not seem optimistic about becoming a top vote-getter.

"I know I'm not going to get voted in, so it doesn't matter," he said.

Williams is still believed to have an excellent shot at making the team as a coach's selection.

Going into Saturday's game with Philadelphia, Williams was averaging 19.6 points and 10.1 assists.

The Lakers' Kobe Bryant leads all candidates with 1,380,383 votes.

Cleveland's LeBron James leads the Eastern Conference and is second overall with 1,351,292 tallies.

Voting will conclude on Jan. 18.

GAME 30 Jazz 97, 76ers 76

* BEST PLAY: Toward the end of the first quarter, Deron Williams gets the ball on the break and shortly after crossing over midcourt he flips a lob pass to Ronnie Brewer, who catches the pass and goes up for a reverse dunk.

* BEST LINE: Wesley Matthews comes off the bench to score 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting. He also adds seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

* KEY STAT: The Jazz hold the Sixers scoreless for more nearly eight minutes to start the fourth quarter.

* THE JOKER: A day after Christmas, Williams decided to play a little joke on a few media members following Saturday morning's shoot-around at EnergySolutions Arena.

He put on a stone face and refused to answer questions for several seconds. When a television reporter asked for his thoughts on the Jazz's recent 2-3 roadtrip, Williams stared straight ahead and said, "Yeah, we're happy about going 2-3."

After an awkward pause, the point guard smiled and said, "I'm playing."

He elaborated on the recent five-game trip that included stops in Atlanta, Orlando and Miami.

"It wasn't a very good road trip for us," he said. "We'd like to have a better record than we ended up having. We had some winable ballgames that we let slip away."

* PRICE IS RIGHT: Point guard Ronnie Price, who missed 17 games with a toe injury, saw his first action at EnergySolutions Arena since Nov. 7, when he logged 10 minutes against the Sacramento Kings. With the departure of backup PG Eric Maynor, Price has become Deron Williams' primary replacement.

Price said he still is not at 100 percent, but, "I'm 100 percent good enough to play. That's a blessing."

Price went through practice on Friday, marking his first full practice in more than seven weeks.

* INJURY REPORT: Allen Iverson (left knee, left shoulder) did not play for Philadelphia.

* ETC.: Saturday's edition of the Jazz's in-house game program "Game Time," featured Williams and Maynor on its cover, which obviously went to press before Maynor was trade last week. ... Williams was whistled for a technical foul with 3:02 left in the fourth. ... The Jazz had 20 turnovers resulting in 13 points for Philadelphia.

* UP NEXT: The Jazz won't play again until Wednesday, when they begin a back-to-back at Minnesota and Oklahoma City. Their next home game is Jan. 2, 1010 vs. Denver.