"Deron Williams said, first of all, that the left ankle he tweaked Wednesday night in the 123-115 loss to Denver is fine, and he'll play tonight against the Suns. So there's that. As for the question of his mounting frustration with the Nets' nightly losing, Williams said it is tricky trying to keep his emotions in check, while still playing with fire and the necessary hatred of losing.

"It's a fine line,'' Williams said at shootaround today at US Airways Center. "People think I'm just being an [expletive], but I just hate to lose. I just don't like losing. I don't sleep well when I lose. It just affects everything I do. So, we've got to turn it around.''

Williams said he understands the season could be long and there figure to be lots more losses coming, and he said coach Avery Johnson "tries to keep me encouraged.''

But it is "difficult'' to deal with all the losing, he said.

"I've never lost this much in my career, this early, this consistently,'' he said. "But you know, it's still early in the season, we're still learning how to play with each other, so there's not really a timetable on how quickly a team can gel together, we're just taking longer than we would like.''"