NEW YORK - Consider it at least fitting and at most prophetic that Friday night's championship game was played in New York.
From the lips of New York City's patron saint and America's grandfather, Yogi Berra, to the precise dive and impossibly long slide of Duke point guard Jason Williams across the floor of Madison Square Garden, it was deja vu all over again.
"I was in the same situation a week ago in practice," said Williams, the All-Tournament selection beaming at the half-dozen reporters gathered around his locker. "Except that time I missed the ball, I didn't get down for it. Coach K said that was the difference between winning and losing. The same thing happened here. I dove for the ball and batted it to Shane and then I saw it got loose again, so I dove after it again. Turns out he was right."
And the fine line between clairvoyant and 500-game winner is getting fuzzier by the New York minute.
Scores are a simple matter, decided on a simple scoreboard, a matter of turning bulbs on and off high above the arena. Winning is decided on the floor.
Winning is nomadic. The plays that win a game show up with no warning.
Friday night, Williams went ahead and grabbed the win himself.
With Temple trailing by a single point with under a minute and a half to play, Lynn Greer made one of the few errors he would commit, slipping on the left wing as he brought the ball upcourt. Williams immediately pounced on the prone point guard, causing a jump ball that was awarded to Temple.
Greer was visibly upset.
He should have waited-20 seconds later he and the Owls, who seemed poised to take the lead and possibly the game, found out what upset was all about.
After a three-pointer by David Hawkins-a three that would have put Temple in command 63-61 with under a minute to play-rattled off the rim, the rebound caromed deep into the right wing. A handful of Blue Devils dove after the ball, but it was Williams who tipped the ball to Battier, who promptly lost the ball in the shuffle.
But credit Williams for persistence.
As the ball skidded underneath the basket, the sophomore point guard tossed himself headfirst into the fray in the paint, sliding from just inside the three-point arc into the blocks.
And somewhere in the middle of the tussle-more rugby scrum than basketball game-Williams alertly signaled for a timeout.
The difference between winning and losing.
"That was just an amazing play," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "You win games like that."
Some people make plays. Williams had just made a game.
The charismatic point guard met reporters with such a modesty you might have expected him to tuck down his imaginary cowboy hat with a flip of his wrist and end all his sentences with 'aw shucks.'
"I was just doing what we do," he said. "We take a lot of pride in our defense. I was doing what we're taught here. The 'D' in Duke stands for defense."
The 'W' in win stands for Williams.
It was not Carlos Boozer's stats-numbers sufficiently gaudy as to be airborne above the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade down Fifth Avenue Thursday-that won the tournament for Duke.
It was a point guard that made everything happen.
When the Blue Devils finally won the game with a 9-0 run over the final three minutes, it was Boozer who got most of the credit and nearly all the points.
Giving Boozer all the credit for that showing is like giving the guy who dusts Michaelangelo's "David" credit for creating it.
When Duke fell behind by six points-its largest deficit of the game-with just over three minutes to play, it was Williams who carted the Blue Devils back.
"I called a timeout [down 60-54] and from then on we played great ball," Krzyzewski said. "Jason Williams put us on his back."
Williams opened the run by drawing three Temple defenders to him and deftly flipping the ball to a wide-open Boozer for a highlight-reel jam. Two possessions later, it was his three in the face of a Temple defender that sent the Blue Devils ahead for good.
And when the game came down to a final bucket, it was Williams who made it happen.
Again the sophomore drew the attention of the Temple zone and dished off to an open Boozer.
Sure, the points and the awards were Boozer's, but the game was all Williams'.
"Jason played great for us," Krzyzewski said. "If one kid won that game for us, Jason Williams won that game for us."
Deja vu. With a twist.
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