by Jordan Garretson, January 19, 2012

In need of their first home win of the season, the Nets turned to their leader on Wednesday night and Deron Williams produced the team's first victory of the year in Jersey.

New Jersey entered Wednesday's contest with Golden State as the lone NBA team yet to secure a home victory this season. It was something that Deron talked about the team needing prior to the game.

He backed up his talk with a complete performance, recording a near triple-double with 24 points on 6-of-13 from the field, four 3-pointers, 8-of-8 on free throws, 10 assists and eight rebounds. The spectacular performance propelled New Jersey to defeat the Warriors 107-100.

"It feels good to get a win at home," D-Will said. "It's something we desperately needed. If you want to be a good team, a playoff team, you've got to protect your home court. And we hadn't done a good job of that before this game…. The crowd has been great the first four games of the season and then tonight again. We haven't given them much reason to cheer so it was good for us to get that first win for them."

Watch D-Will talk more about that first home W with YES Network below:

In fact, the Nets entered the game as the league's only team without a win on their home floor. When that point was raised to him at shootaround, No. 8 said the arena had yet to feel like home for New Jersey and he knew of one way they could remedy that, as noted by Andy Vazquez of The Record:

"We can't mess up the first play of the game," Williams said. "We have to find a way to execute that right and just go from there."

The strategy worked out for the Nets, who scored on their first play of the game — a Williams jumper — and continued to offensively flourish from there. The rare fast start for the Nets proved important in the fourth quarter. When the Nets needed to step on the accelerator, there still was gas in the tank.

D-Will helped the Nets out to a strong start with seven points and three assists in the first quarter. They trailed by two after one thanks to a buzzer-beating heave from Golden State's Monta Ellis. Still Deron was encouraged by the early effort.

"I just wanted to come out and put in a better effort, especially in that first quarter, try to be a little more aggressive and assertive early to get things going," he said. Those first quarters have cost us a lot of games, so that was a point of emphasis for me. We've played teams well in the last few quarters of games, it just seems like those first quarters have cost us."

The fast start deviated from most New Jersey games this season. After entering the game averaging a league-worst 19.2 points in the first stanza, the Nets scored a season high 29 first-quarter points. The quick start made things easier for the Nets as the game progressed, coach Avery Johnson told The Star-Ledger: 

"The main thing is, we didn't expend as much energy trying to get back in the game like we normally do, so I thought our energy for the duration of the game was pretty good," Coach Avery Johnson said.

New Jersey trailed by just one at the break and briefly led in the third, but it wasn't until the final quarter that New Jersey really got untracked. D-Will scored 11 of his 24 points in that frame and added another three assists.

"He had a lot of pep in his step early in the game," Johnson said of his point guard. "We really wanted to get some home cooking today and win in front of our fans. I could see it in him from early in the game; He was ready. In timeouts he did a good job of coaching the guys and telling them where to be. He was ready tonight. Our whole team, we were rested and ready."

Deron has talked often this season about the importance of his leadership role and his need to embrace it. Wednesday night, he showed just how effective he could be in that spot. 

Simply put — No. 8 took over. He took the comeback challenge upon himself, playing the entire fourth quarter and guiding New Jersey to a win.

It started with a pair of dimes, as D-Will hit Anthony Morrow and Jordan Farmar for buckets, each pulling the Nets within a single point of the lead in the first two minutes of the fourth. The Warriors pushed their lead out to five from there, but D-Will knocked it back down to two with a long trey. Less than 30 seconds later, New Jersey went back to Deron for another three and although he misfired, No. 8 drew a foul. He sank all three at the line to put the Nets in front by one.

Ellis hit a jumper to put Golden State back in front by one, but D-Will led the Nets on a 12-2 run to put the game away. During that run, Deron had a hand in eight of New Jersey's 12 points, including a dish to MarShon Brooks for a 26-foot three, followed by an 18-foot jumper and a 25-foot dagger of his own to put the Nets ahead by nine with 3:26 to go.

They cruised from there, picking up that all-important first victory on their home floor.

"Any time you can make some plays and make some shots to close out the game, it's definitely a positive, especially with this team, because we haven't really done that too often," D-Will said. "It's a good way to end the game."

BACKOURT DRAWS A 'WOW'

Nets coach Avery Johnson had just one word to describe the production of his starting backcourt on Wednesday night: Wow.

D-Will accounted for a big chunk of that production with his outstanding night, but right behind was new partner-in-crime, MarShon Brooks. Brooks tallied a career-high 22 points in addition to eight rebounds and six assists for New Jersey in the win, giving the starting backcourt totals of 46 points, 16 rebounds and 16 assists.

"Deron and MarShon as a backcourt tonight. 'Wow.' That's all you can say," Johnson said. "46 points between them 16 assists, 16 rebounds and only five turnovers combined. They really played well off each other."

D-Will admitted it was "probably" the best the two have played together all season and credited Brooks with making the right plays with the ball, beyond his season-high 22 points.

"He played really well tonight. Made some great passes," Deron said. "You know he can score, but I think what he did with his passing and his rebounding really helped us. He's drawing a lot of double teams and he has to learn when to get rid of the ball. He's figuring things out and today was definitely a step in the right direction for him.

Brooks, who is affectionately referred to as 'Rook' in the New Jersey locker room because of his status with the team, said that he and D-Will are building a strong on-court relationship that helps make the right decisions easier on him."

"I was finding him and he was finding me. I look forward to building off of it," Brooks said. "When Deron's getting into the paint and he's driving and kicking it, they're closing out on me so it's easier to show the ball and go by them.

"Today I was taking my time after I got by them and just waiting for the defender to make a decision. If he didn't step up, I'd finish and if he did, I'd drop it off to Hump."

Brooks had 11 points in each half, but got better as the game went on. He tallied five of his six assists in the second half and hit the big three off the D-Will trey in the fourth. As the Nets grow together, D-Will loves what he's seeing out of  "The Rook."

"He has a lot of confidence, which is, I think, his best attribute," Deron said. "He's borderline cocky. But that's a good thing, especially in a basketball player. I feel like he can score on anybody and he's just learning how to play. He doesn't even know how to play the game yet, but he's figuring things out, slowly but surely."

NEXT UP

New Jersey is now with two days before its next home game, a rarity in this lockout-shortened schedule.

The Nets will welcome one of the league's biggest challenges into town on Saturday when they host the Thunder. Oklahoma boasts the Western Conference's best record at 12-3.

"We've had a pretty brutal schedule," Deron said. "But it's not getting any easier. This is the first time we'll have two days between games so that's good, especially going into the back-to-back-to-back we're about to have and thing going on the road. We needed a couple days."

Oklahoma City brought out the best in D-Will last season. No. 8 averaged 20.3 points and 12.3 assists in three games against the Thunder.  Deron and the Nets can be seen gunning for their second-straight home win at 8 p.m. EST Saturday Night on YES. 

RELATED STORIES

• Deron Williams leads Nets over Golden State Warriors, 107-100 (The Star-Ledger, Jan. 18, 2012)
• Rapid Reaction: Nets 107, Warriors 100 (ESPN.com, Jan. 18, 2012)
• Backcourt tandem carries Nets to win (ESPN.com, Jan. 18, 2012)
• Nets beat Warriors for first home win of the season (The Record, Jan. 18, 2012)
• Nets vs. Warriors Game book (NBA.com, Jan. 18, 2012)