Enough of it all, Deron Williams decided in Memphis, where on Friday night he took matters into his own hands, leading the Jazz past the Grizzlies 101-91 and ending 24-16 Utah's five-game road losing streak.

"I tried to be aggressive from the start," said Williams, who scored a game-high 27 points on 8-of-15 field shooting and dished a game-high 12 assists for his 14th double-double this season.

The Jazz point guard also hit two huge jumpers in the fourth quarter, both coming after Memphis twice trimmed what had been a 20-point Utah lead in the third to as few as five in the final two minutes and 32 seconds.

"It's something I'm going to have to do a lot more of on the road," Williams said. "You just can't expect everybody on the team to have it every night on the road, so I've got to be the guy that does it.

"You know, I've made a habit of trying to get everybody involved -- and that's great," he added. "But when we get down in the first half it's tough to come back on the road, so I've got to assert myself early."

It may not have been nearly enough to fully erase the memory of Wednesday night's debacle in Oklahoma City, where the Jazz fell behind early before losing big to the NBA's least-successful team this season.

But, heading into a game tonight at Dallas that ends a three-stop trip, it was plenty sufficient for restoring faith in a club that's just 8-12 away from Utah this season.

"We were a lot more aggressive to start off with, and I thought we pretty much tried to keep that going most of the time," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who also got 21 points from swingman Ronnie Brewer and 13 apiece from Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko. "We made some mistakes, but ... I thought for the most part they tried to get after it a little more defensively."

What really had the Jazz coach crowing, though, was how Williams took over late.

"Those shots he made were huge for us," said Sloan, who played Williams for all of the second quarter, all of the fourth and -- including some bonus time at off-guard next to backup point guard Brevin Knight -- a game-high 44 minutes in all. "I thought if those don't go in that gives them opportunity to close it out on us."

Williams drilled a 3-pointer over Grizzlies big man Marc Gasol late in the opening half to send Utah into the break leading 54-43.

Especially huge, though, were the two jumpers he hit in the fourth, one a 22-footer over Memphis point Mike Conley to make it 96-89 Jazz with 2:07 to go and other a 3-pointer over Conley to put Utah up 99-91 with 59.9 seconds remaining.

The first of those two came with just one second left on the shot clock.

"I looked up and saw the clock was ticking down, so I knew I had to get it up quick," Williams said. "I knew the play was broken down, and the shot was going to have to get up soon.

"I was kind of forced into the first one," he added. "(That) gave me a little bit of confidence, so I was able to knock that other one down."

Williams had a fast-break layup earlier in the quarter, giving him six of Utah's final 10 points.

Vintage Williams, teammate C.J. Miles suggested.

"You can always see it -- that little extra pep in his step off the pick-and-roll when he's trying to get to the basket more and attacking instead of trying to set guys up," Miles said. "When he starts turning the corner like that, you can tell he's about to open the game up."

For one night, then, case closed.

And it needed to be for Williams, especially since his file on the Jazz's first game of the trip remains wide open.

"I'm still dwelling on that loss. I'll dwell on that loss all season," Williams said. "You know, there are a lot of losses I'll dwell on. There are losses last year I'm still dwelling on." E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com