Will Deron Williams' Shoulder Injury Impact His Play In The Semifinals?

For some strange reason, Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan elected to leave star point guard Deron Williams on the floor in the closing seconds of the Jazz's close-out win over the Denver Nuggets, and he may have paid a price for it.

Williams ran into a hard screen set by Denver's Chris Andersen and appeared to injure his left shoulder in the process, a development which could have grave consequences for the Jazz in the second-round.

The extent of Williams' injury has yet to be determined— and hopefully it's nothing major. But if it is, the Jazz can flush any hopes of defeating the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers down the toilet.

Williams is the one player the Lakers don't have an answer for, and it was his play which lifted his injury-depleted Jazz club past the discombobulated Nuggets.

Williams became the first player in NBA history to score at least 20 points and dish out 10 assists in the first five games of a playoff series, and even though he had some help, Williams is the player that makes the team go.

That's why Sloan's decision was so perplexing because the game was well in hand, and considering the importance of Williams to the Jazz' hopes, it seems like an easy decision to sit him at the end of the game.

The Jazz don't particularly matchup well with the Lakers as their 3-1 deficit in the regular season series will suggest, but the Lakers have also defeated the Jazz in the postseason the last two years as well.

In order to escape the shadow of that California-sized monkey on the Jazz's back, it's going to take focus, determination, and health from a roster which has already been consumed by injuries.

It is not known if Andre Kirilenko will be available for the semifinals, and the Jazz have already loss Mehmet Okur for the duration of the postseason, so already the prospects going forward are dim.

Boozer and Paul Milsap are gritty post players and they dominated the Denver Nuggets in Game Six, but the Lakers offer an entirely different sort of challenge in the paint.

Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom tower over any of the Jazz's post players. And it's not just idle height either, as all three players have more than enough talent to complement their height.

The other matchups look just as grim, because it's hard to say which Jazz member can effectively guard Kobe Bryant, and Ron Artest has the confidence of his defensive performance against Kevin Durant to draw inspiration from.

A healthy Williams is imperative if the Jazz hope to compete with the Lakers, because anything less than 100 percent will likely result in a quick and thorough win for the defending champions.

It could mean nothing, or it could mean everything, but the manner in which Williams was holding his arm as he walked off the court has to be troubling for Utah's fans and their organization.

The hopes of the Utah franchise rests in the hands of their superstar point guard, but if Williams is unable to perform with efficiency, those hopes will quickly shift to disappointment.