In fact, Utah currently leads the NBA in both assists per game and assists differential compared to its opponents.

Yet it's only the past two-and-a-half weeks or so -- after Christmas, actually -- that the 22-15 Jazz have gotten back to something from which for a short while they simply got away.

Sloan thinks he knows why they have, too.

"They can see that gives them an opportunity to have a chance to win," he said. "If somebody's open, give it to the guy that's got a better shot rather than just cast shots up."

From era to era, it's been a mantra by which the Jazz largely have lived.

And it all starts at the point.

"You know," Sloan said, "John Stockton got a lot of assists. Deron (Williams) gets a lot of assists.

"That kind of goes hand-in-hand," the Jazz coach added, "with other people seeing that, seeing how much it (helps) to make a pass to somebody that has a better shot."

Statistics, in this case, certainly support the assertion.

During a seven-game stretch prior to Christmas -- one in which Sloan's team went just 3-4 -- the Jazz were averaging 21.7 assists per game, with no more than 25 in any one game.

Over their seven post-Christmas games -- a span in which they are 5-2 -- they're averaging an above-usual 28.3, with 26 or more in each game.

The difference is both obvious and significant.

So, too, is the fact that in those seven pre-Christmas games they were assisting on 61 percent of their field goals.

In the seven since, that total is up to 68.9 percent.

No wonder Williams speaks so frequently about how important it is that the Jazz be "unselfish."

No wonder sixth man Andrei Kirilenko said after Saturday's win over Detroit -- a game in which Utah assisted on 29 of its 38 field goals, an impressive 76.3 percent clip -- that he really likes how the Jazz have been playing lately.

And no wonder sharpshooting big man Mehmet Okur, who scored a game-high 22 points and hit 8-of-9 from the field against the Pistons, credited his teammates afterward for doing "a good job creating open shots for me."

Sloan actually credits his club's many injury woes -- 99 man-games lost and counting -- for both the way the Jazz strayed throughout much of December and for how lately they've been more cognizant of the need to make that extra pass.

"Sometimes you get a little bit shorthanded," he said. "That's when you realize how much more you need the other people to help you win."

As a result, the Jazz -- with three straight victories heading into tonight's homestand-ending game against Indiana -- aren't just winning.

They're helping each other do it in style.

The Jazz's league-leading 25 assists per game this season are nearly two more than the next-closest Los Angeles Lakers, and two-plus more than tonight's opponent (and the third-ranked team in that stat category), the Pacers.

Their assist differential compared to opponents, meanwhile, is 6.73 -- more than 3.0 better than next-closest San Antonio, and more than double every other team in the NBA.

It all starts, of course, with Williams, whose 9.9 assists per game average ranks second individually only to Chris Paul of New Orleans.

Williams buys into doing things the Sloan way when it comes to distributing and sharing the ball, and he's gotten teammates to do as well, which is why the coach who has spent two decades in charge of the Jazz feels as good about this season's version as any other.

Even the ones run by all-time NBA assists leader Stockton.

"I think this team," Sloan said Sunday, "is good enough to play against anybody if we come and put the effort into it, and everybody works at it and tries to do the right thing.

"I've felt like that all along." Helping hands A look at the Jazz's assist totals in the last seven games vs. the previous seven: Span ... Assists ... Average ... Record Last seven ... 198 ... 28.3 ... 5-2 Prior seven ... 152 ... 21.7 ... 3-4 E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com