The Jazz and Warriors are back in Oracle Arena Thursday night when they start the second game of their second round matchup. The Warriors dominated in game 1, led by Stephen Curry's 22 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. Kevin Durant and Draymond Green both had 17 and The Warriors sent a message to the Jazz and the league with their performance.
Game 1 recap
The Warriors sent a message to Utah and everyone watching that while they are primarily a three-point shooting team, they don't need it. They made just seven threes in a game that they won by 12.
It was a dominant finish and was done behind a really nice effort on offense and defense. They held the Jazz to just 31 percent shooting from beyond the arc and 46 percent from the field. A big key to this was that they trusted their help defense and ran guys off of the three-point line, daring them to make tough mid-range shots.
Keys for Utah
The largest key that was noticeable for Utah was their defense in transition. The Warriors were getting easy buckets in transition and if you're the Jazz and you want to slow the game down, you have to defend this better. The Warriors had 29 fastbreak points compared to 6 from the Jazz. After that, the Jazz can't allow turnovers and points off turnovers.
The Warriors had 20 points off turnovers, and likely even more that were just off of missed shots. The Jazz need ball movement to effectively slow the game down. Frequently, players would come down and try and do it themselves, leaving a long rebound flying to Golden State and off they went running.
The Jazz will have to make shots eventually.
They have no chance in this series unless they can match shots with Golden State. They don't have bad three-point shooters, so it's not a matter of skill per say but just a matter of patience and toughness. The Warriors switch everything and get in your face and the Jazz need to handle this better.
Keys for Golden State
The biggest key for Golden State is to keep pushing that tempo.
The faster the game is the more you bring Utah out of their comfort zone, and then you can completely dominate them. The Warriors have to speed this up and even sometimes take quick shots to where if you hit them, you're stacking on a lead that brings a lot of pressure onto Utah. If you can give them that pressure like they are down 10 quickly, you'll get them to have worse possessions than normal.
Both these teams are really good at what they do. Right now, the Warriors are simply dominating. The Jazz need to step up and hit big time shots in game two to challenge this series.
