"It's not the end of the world," Williams added. "I didn't mean to tweet like it was the end of the world. Just we've got to do something. I know the fans watching, I know the fans sitting at home, they're not happy with us right now. I'm not happy with us, either."

At the same time, Williams offered a commentary that spoke volumes about the Jazz , sharing a statement made over dinner after watching the Celtics, who had seven players score in double figures Wednesday.

"A couple of us were talking," Williams said, "we were looking at Boston and . . .Paul Pierce has 10 points, K.G. [Kevin Garnett] has 10 points, Ray Allen has 10 points, [Rajon] Rondo has 14 points, somebody else had 12 points and they're on the bench happy.

"And they don't care who the hell gets the glory, they just want to win. Until we figure that out, we're not going to be a good team."

The Jazz dropped to 3-5 with the loss and are now 1-3 on the road and giving up 102.8 points a game after stressing improvement in both areas entering the season.

"Especially with all the emphasis on defense and talk about defense," Williams said. "We haven't put much of an effort up."

He added: "We're not putting up much of a fight against the good teams. You've got to put up a fight."

The Jazz also have absorbed a number of crushing defeats, losing at home to Houston and Sacramento. They blew big second half leads against Dallas and New York as well, though they held on to beat the Knicks. Then came Wednesday's blowout against Boston.

"It's definitely concerning," Williams said. "These losses we've had have been bad. This early in the season, it's not good for us because in my previous four years we've started off with pretty good records, if not great records, and then fizzled as the season went on.

"If we continue that trend, we're just not going to have a good year."

The Jazz gave up 14 points in the first four minutes of the first quarter and 15 points in the first four minutes of the third quarter. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan benched Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur early in the third for Paul Millsap and Kyrylo Fesenko.

"We haven't been consistent," Williams said. "I keep saying that, but we haven't been consistent from game to game or from quarter to quarter. I don't know what it is.

"A lot of it is a little bit of selfishness. We build leads and we start looking for our own shot and worrying about scoring instead of getting stops."

The Jazz will travel to Philadelphia today in advance of Friday's game against the 76ers. Williams was set to practice and reported improvement in his strained back while Ronnie Price already has been ruled out of Friday's game.

rsiler@sltrib.com