BY STEVE HANF
SALISBURY POST

PHILADELPHIA— Jason Williams knew he’d found his game.

He also knew his teammates needed to find theirs, and suddenly, an opportunity for a wake-up call presented itself.

Thursday night’s intensely physical clash between UCLA and Duke reached its boiling point with eight minutes to play in the second half.

Williams had just reeled off 19 straight Blue Devil points to give his team a 59-51 lead.

He didn’t know how many he had. Neither did UCLA, but the Bruins knew it was a lot. So during an eight-man rugby scrum on the court for a loose ball, elbows flying all over the place, one found its way to Williams’ side.

It wasn’t much of a shot. More like a glancing blow, really. The referee’s didn’t even notice it.

Williams did.

He went nuts, charging after UCLA point guard Earl Watson, yelling and staring down the rest of the Bruins and putting on quite a show.

There was a method to his madness.

“I don’t usually talk (trash) during big games,”Williams said. “It just got to where our team wasn’t playing to the level I knew we could play at. There was a chance where there was a little scuffle and I got nudged and I blew it out of proportion just to pump my teammates up. You’ve got to do that sometimes.”

His theatrics worked perfectly. Duke’s defense clamped down, Williams’ teammates got open for shots instead of waiting for him to score and the Blue Devils advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament with a 76-63 victory.

Williams had just finished burning the Bruin defense when he lit his teammates’ fires. The mini-altercation followed a six-minute stretch where the sophomore point guard was the only Duke player adding to his scoring column.

A sub-standard first half sparked the outburst. Williams had just eight points at halftime on 2-for-8 shooting and his team held a precarious 33-26 lead.

It got a little worse before it got better. UCLA pulled within 40-37 when Williams took over. It started with a pass, as Mike Dunleavy traded his open 3-point look for Williams’ similar shot from the corner.

Nothing but net.

“You could see that look in his eye, that he really wanted to get going,”Dunleavy said. “I just wanted to get him a shot. Mine would’ve been a good shot, but his was a great one. It really got us going and I’m glad I passed it.”

Dunleavy kept a good thing going, lobbing an alley-oop layup to Williams on the next possession. Williams followed that with a driving layup and a 3-pointer that capped a personal 10-1 run and had UCLA head coach Steve Lavin calling for a timeout.

“He has the ability to do that and it doesn’t surprise us,”Dunleavy said. “It’s kind of fun just to go down in the corner, spot up and watch him do his thing.”

Williams extended the lead to 53-43 when he pulled up for a 3 off the dribble. His next drive resulted in two free throws, and he finished off the streak with two drives straight down the middle of the lane, splitting whatever defenses the Bruins threw at him.

“He plays with a sense of freedom, and with that type of freedom as a point guard it’s unbelievable how things will just happen for you if you stay aggressive,”Watson said. “There’s not even a second thought in his mind.

“They made a concerted effort to get him open and get him going and before you knew it, he made big-time shots and the team started rolling,”Watson added.

All that remained was to let Williams know exactly what kind of roll he’d been on.

“We were in the press conference and someone said, ‘You scored 19 straight.’ I was like, ‘What, are you serious?’ ” Williams said. “The intensity was so high. I was just so into the game. My teammates kept finding me and I kept knocking them down.

“That’s the great thing about our team. We have so many stars, anybody can step up any night and take it over.”

The most astonishing part of Williams’ run is that Duke does have so many big-name players capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor. For Williams to have such a successful stretch means his teammates aren’t finding and hitting their shots.

They didn’t mind a bit.

“If Jason wants to score 50 points straight, let him do it,”Duhon said. “As long as we win. Jason knows what he has to do for us to win. He’s a smart player.”

Smart enough to know how to fire up his struggling teammates. And smart enough to know when to take over a game. He’s done it before, but not of this magnitude, and not on this grand a stage.

“I think so, because this is the time of the year when it matters most,”Williams said when asked if this was the biggest game of his career. “It’s a dream come true, and hopefully the dream’s still going.”

It is, thanks to his outburst.

Both of them.

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Sportswriter Steve Hanf is covering Duke in the NCAA Tournament.