The Golden State Warriors steamrolled the Utah Jazz on their way to a 106-94 win on Tuesday night at Oracle Arena in the first game of the Western Conference semifinals. After having an eight-day rest due to them sweeping the Trail Blazers, the Warriors come out with seemingly with no rust as Stephen Curry lead all scorers with 22 points on 7 of 11 shooting along with seven rounds and five assists.
It was a great team effort by the Warriors
Along with this Curry seemed so focused on this game he put Rudy Gobert, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate on skates with an arrange of crossover moves on the perimeter during the second quarter before taking it to the hoop for two points.
As Monte Poole of NBC Sports showed, an injured Curry would not have been able to make those plays last season, Kevin Durant (17 points) and Klay Thompson (15 points) also contributed to the scoring, and Draymond Green set the pace of this game with another excellent all-around performance.
Throughout 34 minutes of game time, Green stuffed the stat sheet with a stat line of 17 points, eight rebounds, six assists, two blocks and two steals. A fearsome presence tonight, Green was able to force multiple turned that transitioned to easy fast break points and these efforts able the Warriors to outscore the Jazz on the fast break 29-6.
A perfect example of this defense came during the second quarter when Green single handily stopped a Jazz fast break opportunity, which allowed Iguodala to set up Durant for a ferocious fast break slam.
Another problem that the Jazz face this game was that their team didn't have the offensive presence to hang with the best team in the Western Conference according to Marcus Thompson of Bay Area Newsgroup.
The Jazz need to find readjustments
The duo of Gordon Hayward (12 points, 4-of-15 shooting) and Joe Johnson (11 points, 4-of-10 shooting) both experienced shooting slumps throughout the game which hugely disadvantaged the Jazz.
Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News took note that the Jazz will need to adjust to the Warriors' length and athleticism along the perimeter after the Jazz's first-round series matchup against the Los Angles Clippers.
If there was anything to gain from the game for the Jazz, it was the fact that they beat the Warriors in bench scoring 46-25 lead by Rodney Hood's 12 points.
Looking ahead the Jazz will need that production from both the starting and bench units have any chance of hanging with the Warriors. The Jazz will be looking to even the series at 1-1 in Game 2 (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) on Thursday night at Oracle Arena.
