Less than 24 hours after defeating the Wizards at home, the Golden State Warriors (67-7) flew to Salt Lake City, UT to face the Utah Jazz (37-37), who are currently in 6th place in the Western Conference playoff race.
The Warriors welcomed back Brandon Rush, who was out with a bruised knee. Still out were Andre Iguodala (ankle), Festus Ezeli (knee), and Kevon Looney (hip).
The Jazz were without Alec Burks (fibula), Dante Exum (ACL), and Tibor Pleiss (D-League).
1st Quarter – Rollercoaster
Despite landing in town at 3:00AM, the Warriors’ offense came out humming, with this beautiful four-touch “Connect Four” as Stephen Curry hit Klay Thompson who passed to Draymond Green who dished to Andrew Bogut for a bucket at the rim:
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Bogut was soon the recipient of another series of passes, this time from Green to Thompson to Bogut, but the Jazz did well to answer, as Derrick Favors got two inside buckets and Rodney Hood hit a clutch triple at the shotclock buzzer after being foiled by Klay’s good defense on an initial move.
Then Curry made this beautiful move scissoring through Utah’s traffic:
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Harrison Barnes hit a jumper, then Curry made this fantastic defensive strip…
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…missed a layup that Barnes tracked down, and Thompson ended up going in for the attack with a right-to-left dribble drive.
Barnes added a pull-up…
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…Bogut found Klay backdoor on a misdirection with Steph, and Thompson added a stop-turn-pivot jumper and that capped a 10-0 run that gave the Warriors a 19-12 lead early on.
But after Rudy Gobert dunked a putback of a Shelvin Mack miss, Curry and Green committed three consecutive empty trips — a missed Steph layup, a Curry turnover, and a bad pass by Draymond — after Warriors head coach Steve Kerr took a timeout.
Steph made this brilliant offensive rebound of a Barnes missed triple and retreated for three…
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…but with 27.3 seconds to go, Steph added his second turnover as he threw a poor overhead pass to a rolling Anderson Varejao, resulting in a Jazz fastbreak layup.
But Curry atoned for the mistake to end the quarter. Utah had a foul to give and so, from the side out, Steph got the inbound, attacked from the perimeter and stopped on a dime for a jumper with 0.6 seconds left and gave the Warriors a 26-21 end-of-first-quarter lead:
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2nd Quarter – Green Light The Great Equalizer Of 2nd-Chance Points And Turnovers
It took two-and-half minutes of empty possessions before Leandro Barbosa drained a triple from the right wing, then followed that up with a steal and a run-out layup.
Marreese Speights came in, missed a jumper and made a turnover, but then canned a jumper to give Golden State its largest lead of the night, 33-23, with 8:03 to play.
Favors got a putback to give the Jazz their 11th second-chance point, then hit a jumpshot. Brandon Rush missed twice and Trey Burke also hit a jumper, and Utah pulled to within a possession of Golden State, 36-33, with 2:53 left.
Green then made a bad pass behind Bogut, but Favors couldn’t hit from the top of the key, Bogut rebounded, outlet to Curry, and Steph brought the ball up with all five Jazz back behind the Warriors’ arc, and launched from the deep right elbow for three, causing Utah head coach Quin Snyder to call timeout:
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Golden State took a 39-33 lead with 2:17 remaining.
Out of the timeout, Gobert slammed home an alley oop, then Rodney Hood capped a 7-0 run with a layup on the left side to give the Jazz a 40-39 lead with 54 seconds to play, but Klay found Shaun Livingston on the baseline, who then found Barnes open on the right wing for three.
Barnes and Gordon Hayward traded missed threes to end the half, and the Warriors had a 42-40 lead after two quarters of play.
Curry and Thompson led Golden State with 10 points apiece, but the Warriors were a combined 5-for-14 from downtown. Barnes had 7 points and 8 rebounds, while Barbosa added 7 points off the bench.
Favors had 10 points, 5 rebounds to lead Utah, with Gobert adding 6 rebounds and Mack 5 assists.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @lindsayds20)
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