The Warriors: Sluggish in Salt Lake
We were pretty much wrong about everything.
Last night in Salt Lake City, in game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series, it was the Utah Jazz who had the energy and it was the Warriors who were a step behind. The Jazz looked confident; the Warriors looked hesitant. The Jazz ran the Warriors off the court. Matt Harpring done brought it. And the Jazz backcourt held its own behind the spirited play of Deron Williams. Did we leave anything out? Oh yeah, the Jazz didn't lose by 20, they, uh, won, 116-112.
Game 1 was a back-and-forth nailbiter (16 lead changes and 21 ties) that went right down to the quick. And like a bamboo shoot to the quick, it hurts. The Ws fought hard all night and had a chance to take the lead on a three-pointer by Stephen Jackson with eight seconds to play, but the shot clanked and so did the Warriors fortunes in game 1.
An all too-common sight for the Warriors in game 1: Carlos Boozer all alone in the paint. Seriously, the nearest Warrior is like 10 feet away. Photo from espn.com.
Conventional wisdom says the Jazz want to run a half-court game and want the score in the 80s; the Warriors want to run a wide-open fire drill and put the score over 100. So with a score like 116-112, you'd think it would be all Warriors.
But like us, you'd be wrong. The Jazz outscored Warriors in fast break points, 25-19, by taking advantage of rebounds and turnovers to turn the Warriors running game against them. The Jazz outrebounded the Warriors, 54-36, including a 20-14 advantage in offensive rebounds, and the Warriors gave the Jazz the ball 16 times on turnovers.
Observation number one about tonight's game: Baron Davis is not 100 percent. It was, ahem, painfully obvious that Baron's right hamstring was hampering his mobility and his quickness. And forget about any lift -- except for that two-handed jam driving down the lane with 4:37 to go in the second quarter. At times, the Beard looked like he was dragging his right leg behind him. He looked and acted vulnerable and both teams seemed to sense this. The Dubs were not as cocksure and explosive as they were with Dallas and the Jazz were emboldened to take the action right to Biddy.
Specifically, Deron Williams went off, scoring 31 points and making Baron work extra hard on both ends of the court. Williams had Baron back on his heels like Jason Terry can only dream about. Baron held his own, including a monster 17-point second quarter, but at the end of the game, it was Williams that was the aggressor -- and the victor.
At halftime, TNT's Pam Oliver asked the Beard about his hammy and he said it was fine. She noted that the team looked a little flat-footed and Baron replied that the entire team was under the weather with the flu. When Oliver tried to confirm that the entire team had the flu, Biddy said it was "uh, allergies." Hmm. All we can say is it better not have been hangovers. Whatever the problem, they definitely did not have the spark that has come to symbolize this team over the past two months.
Observation number two: the Warriors have no set offensive plays. Every trip down the court is a one-on-one adventure -- either a head-down bull drive to the hoop, a one-on-one backdown to the hoop, or a quick jumper with nobody underneath to board. Getting outrebounded by 18 boards and turning the ball over 16 times is not going to get it done against a fundamentally sound team -- especially when you have no sure-fire set plays to run when the fastbreak isn't there or the low-percentage, off-balance outside jumpers aren't going down.
Speaking of the half-court game, the other head of Utah's two-headed gorgon, Carlos Boozer, held up his end of the bargain as well. Booz' scored 17 points and dominated the paint, pulling down 20 rebounds (10 offensive). None was bigger than the offensive rebound and putback by Boozer to put the Jazz up by two with 17 seconds to play. Somebody put a body on that guy!
Just before game time, the Jazz announced that guard Derek Fisher would not be able to play because of unspecified family business. At least he had an excuse. For the Warriors, Mickael Pietrus and Monta Ellis were no-shows. They had 6 points in 23 minutes between the two of them. Monta just can't get untracked. When he does get a chance to play, he's pressing. Because of his youth and inexperience, he is not able to separate wild, adrenaline energy from controlled, focused, playoff energy. Pietrus? Well, Mickael just looks lost sometimes. He's a dreamer.
On the other hand, Al Harrington awoke from his first-round slumber to jack up 14 points in the first half en route to 21 for the game on 4-7 three-point shooting. We've missed you Michelangelo. He had a couple of nice blocks too, however, he missed a critical three-pointer with a minute left that would have put the Warriors up by one.
There was one moment of levity for the Warriors. At 4:22 in the third, Jax was fouled hard by Andrei Kirilenko while driving to the hoop. Jax was pushed into the first riser of seats along the baseline, right into a guy in a Jazz jersey holding a big sign that read, "Stephen Jackson, the league needs another $50,000." Jax extricated himself from the guy without incident and good-naturedly rubbed the guy's head while grinning. Irony is a lot less humorous when you lose.
Final observation: we must say, the Utah crowd was pretty weak. Not even as good as the Dallas crowd, which was eh. Neither can hold a decibel meter to the O-rena fans the way they've been going off lately. Maybe it's the arena name. For 12 years we had the Oakland Coliseum, and well, you know how that went. But the first year we go with a cool name like the O-rena (actual name, The Oracle), we make the playoffs. So, Energy Solutions Arena? Are you kidding? What a crappy name. Sounds like an infomercial. It's the same building it's always been, but at least the Delta Center had a little poetic character to it.
Speaking of character, the Dubs are going to have to reach down for two spoonfuls of it on Wednesday night when they try to salvage game 2 of the best-of-seven series. Check this, the game starts at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, not 7:30 like Monday night's game. Don't miss it (TNT, KNBR).