Q3: Flat
The Warriors came out flat, missing four shots including trey attempts by Draymond Green and Kevin Durant, plus two turnovers by Durant, one of them a charge.
With 9:03 remaining, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr took a timeout as Utah hit four straight points to make it 65-50.
The Warriors snapped out of it, at least momentarily, as “KD” got a bucket inside, then after getting fouled and missing the second free throw, Zaza Pachulia got the rebound and found Durant for a three, putting the Dubs back up, 71-52.
Stephen Curry got a one-handed scoop on the right baseline past Rudy Gobert, but Gobert answered with an “and-one” on Zaza, then Klay Thompson went with an up-fake and drove in, got hacked with no call, and at the other end, Gobert slammed home a missed three by Joe Johnson.
Draymond then made a bad pass to Curry, and Rudy found Trey Lyles for a reverse layup that trickled in, prompting Kerr to call timeout as the Jazz finally showed signs of life, cutting the Golden State lead down to 73-59 with 6:02 to play.
Out of the timeout, the Warriors’ slide downhill continued as Andre Iguodala threw an errant pass to Curry on a curl, and Dante Exum threw a touchdown pass to Raul Neto.
Later, Green made a great defensive steal of Lyles, but McGee lost the ball inside, leading to a triple by Joe Ingles, who tallied 10 points at the half, up top over JaVale.
That brought the Jazz back to within single-digits, a deficit of 73-64 with 4:41 to go.
But the Warriors struck back, finally. Draymond drove the right side only to get disrupted by Gobert, only to have Johnson’s three-ball fall short, leading to Iguodala pushing the ball up to find Green down low, who then lobbed an alley-oop to McGee:
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Iguodala added a pull-up jumper, but Gobert drew McGee’s fourth personal foul. His third was on a previous double-foul getting tangled up with Ingles while jogging to the half-court set.
Later, Neto got swatted by JaVale, McCaw got the rebound, outlet to Iguodala, who found Steph trailing for a splash.
Lyles got disrupted by McGee, but stuck with it and scored over Green, and Kerr inserted Kevon Looney for JaVale before Jazz head coach Quin Snyder called timeout with 1:57 to play, the Warriors up 80-68.
Before the quarter ended, Looney got a bucket underneath fed by a driving McCaw, then Looney blocked Ingles, but Shelvin Mack drew free throws against Curry, Draymond tweaking his ankle in the process and sending him to the locker room…
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…and the Jazz crept back to an 82-70 deficit at the horn.
Q4:
The Warriors got off to a slow start in the final frame, as Durant missed, Thompson got called for a charge, his third personal, and Mack hit a floater, got another miss by Durant, and drove on Klay to make it 82-74, Warriors.
Thompson broke the drought with a mid-post jumper, but Mack drew Klay’s fourth personal on the next drive.
Then Thompson missed from the same spot he had hit before, and Ingles hit a three from the right win, the ball trickling in. The Jazz had now come back to a five-point deficit, 84-79, with 8:49 remaining.
Durant drew a foul beyond the arc before a TV timeout, and after it, Golden State was back up, 87-79, after hitting all three free throws.
Green was also deemed available to play on a “tweaked” ankle.
After the timeout, Durant went to work in “grind” mode, getting a late blocking foul on a drive into the lane challenging Boris Diaw, although KD only hit one of two free throws.
Gobert then slammed home a miss, but was called for offensive goal-tending, and Durant got switched onto by Gobert, and Rudy paid the price as KD drove past him for a two-hand slam:
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Snyder called a timeout as the Warriors edged ahead, 90-80, with 6:04 to play.
After the timeout, Kerr re-inserted Green and Curry, Ian Clark got a steal on a lost dribble by Mack, and a few possessions later, Durant made a back-cut facilitated by a Pachulia screen, with Draymond providing the laser assist:
Dish n' Dunk, starring @Money23Green & @KDTrey5 on @CSNAuthentic pic.twitter.com/Z2ExpokNDE
— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) December 9, 2016
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Ingles hit another triple, but Clark answered back on a catch-and-shoot, Green’s 8th assist of the night.
Gobert got two straight buckets at the rim, the second after Draymond stole the ball from Rudy, but Steph back-rimmed a triple and Gobert was still in the Jazz front-court. Ingles threw a full-court pass for the easy Gobert slam.
Clark came back with another triple, though, coming around Durant with the ball and getting the interference from KD for the open shot, and that gave the Warriors a 98-87 lead.
Durant then stole the ball from Lyles and streaked up the court for the harm and slam for the “and-one”.
Later, Steph made a bad cross-court pass to hot Clark, but the Jazz had three attempts at a bucket and missed all of them as Mack, Ingles, and Exum all missed threes via offensive boards.
Curry then got the last rebound and went coast-to-coast, Exum unable to defend with KD right there under the rim with Steph approaching.
That effectively put the nail in the Jazz coffin, 103-89, with just 1:31 left.
Gobert ended with a dunk and-one versus Zaza, Durant picked up a technical arguing a call, but it was all academic as Golden State (20-3) finished with a 106-99 win over Utah.
The team will now travel to Memphis to face the Grizzlies in two nights.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @lexilkastanis)
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