Steph Curry, Warriors overpower Jazz in Game 1 victory
Yes, his Utah Jazz team had downed the vaunted Golden State Warriors late in the regular season. And yes, after closing out the Clippers in Game 7 on Sunday and thus reaching the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2010, they had every reason to feel confident heading into this series. But no, as he made clear before tipoff, that didn’t mean the Jazz had any substantive reason to believe that they were ready to overcome this sort of super team obstacle.
“Truthfully, I’m not sure that we’ve had success (against the Warriors),” the third-year Jazz head coach had said. “(The) last game, they were at a different point in their season. Both teams had some guys resting. I wouldn’t point to that game and say that it was a barometer or example of success for us.”
He won’t be pointing at Game 1 either.
Not only did the Warriors dominate the Jazz 106-94 at Oracle Arena on Tuesday, they did it in the kind of way that should concern Snyder and his team going forward. In this game in which they shot just 31% from three-point range (nine of 31), and with 7-foot-1 Jazz intimidator Rudy Gobert looking more ineffective than he has all season, the vast majority of Golden State's damage was done on the inside. After sweeping Portland in the first round and earning eight days of rest that clearly didn’t turn to rust, these Warriors were too fast, too sharp, too good and too many for Gobert & Co. to keep up.
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But as is so often the case, this Warriors’ group that finished the regular season with the league’s second-best defensive rating was as stingy on that end as they were electric on the other. The Jazz shot just 46.3% overall, with small forward Gordon Hayward (12 points, four assists, four rebounds) hitting just four of 15 shots and point guard George Hill limited to seven points and three assists. Gobert, who suffered a hyperextended left knee in Game 1 of the first round but has now played five games since returning, had 13 points and eight rebounds in 31 minutes.
The Jazz, who trailed 58-46 at halftime after failing to score until more than four minutes had passed in the first quarter, looked badly overmatched from the start. Between the inefficiency of their slow-paced offense (42.9% shooting in the first half) and the sloppiness that so often sparked the Warriors’ dangerous offense (10 turnovers at the break), it was as ugly as Snyder could have imagined.
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As Curry made his way through a rotating carousel of Warriors screens atop the key, with defensive switches from Dante Exum and Boris Diaw, he found himself alone on the perimeter with the 7-foot-1 Frenchman. “The Stifle Tower,” as they call him, needed a retrofitting by the time Curry was done.
He went through the legs twice, darted forward, then backward, and ultimately left Gobert spinning twice before he watched Curry dart past for a reverse layup that put the Warriors up 54-39. The play was symbolic of Gobert’s first-half struggles, as he struggled to adjust to the Warriors’ spread offense and saw them hit 11 of 16 shots at the rim before the break (all five missed were courtesy of Durant).
“This team puts pressure on you in so many different ways, particularly with the shooting,” Snyder said before the game. “Rudy is going to have to be unbelievably communicative, mobile, alert, particularly in transition where he’s going to be in situations where he’s not on his man.
“Rudy will have different matchups. He’s been subject to it for a while, whether it’s a shooting (center) or different matchups. He’s going to have to handle that because we want him on the floor. We feel like we’re better with him, that’s kind of an understatement. A lot of variety for Rudy, a lot of versatility that he’s going to have to have on the defensive end, and we need to be prepared for that as a group.”
The mystery of this matchup was rooted in the regular season meetings that simply didn’t yield much in the way of applicable data. While the Warriors won twice in the three tries, Hayward and Hill missed two of the games and the Warriors were without shooting guard Klay Thompson in another.
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick.
