ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Golden State Warriors controlled much of the game tonight against the Utah Jazz and the theme of protecting homecourt emerged as the Warriors checked it off on their to-do list once again with a resounding 102-88 victory at home Saturday night.
“We have a winning mindset which is to take care of business at home. Compete on the road and there are games that you should win on the road, but take care of business at home,” head coach Mark Jackson said, “The teams that have truly successful years, they take care of business at home. That’s the first thing to being a good team. We are learning that and hopefully will keep it going.”
David Lee echoed the approach.
“It’s something that’s very important and I think we’ve handled it well. It’s something that we need to do to be a successful team and to reach where we want to reach in this regular season,” Lee said, “So far we’ve beaten the teams we’re supposed to beat and we’ve won games at home.”
The Jazz could have been a “trap” game.
“We call that a ‘trap’ game. It definitely is a trap game because we’re riding high, had a huge win against OKC, had a good week,” Andrew Bogut said, “but we gotta take care of business. We set a goal at the start of the season, beat the teams we’re supposed to beat. Win every game possible at home and then battle the rest of the teams around us which have a pretty good record.”
“We realize, if you wanna be great,” Klay Thompson said, “You gotta beat the teams you’re supposed to beat and battle the good teams on the road.”
The Jazz had actually cut the lead to seven in the third quarter.
“They just started scoring. They had 29 points in the third quarter, a big quarter for them. I thought we did a poor job containing the dribble for the first time all game long and they got us caught up in rotations and hurt us. We made the proper adjustments, but,” Jackson said, “it affected our pace.”
“We’re having a couple dry spots, but that’s going to happen. You’ve just got to figure out how to keep the gas pedal down,” Stephen Curry said, “Regardless of shooting the ball, our defense is showing up.”
“We were able to respond from a run. They cut it to single digits,” Andre Iguodala said, “but then we pushed it back up. We didn’t let it get down to five, didn’t find ourselves to where we start panicking. Then we came back and put the game away.”
Jermaine O’Neal went down with a sprained right knee and strained right groin, after slipping on a wet spot while moving by himself under the basket. As is the case with the Warriors culture, the coach and his players wished O’Neal the best, but also categorized it as an opportunity for someone to step up.
“As usual it will be by feel. I’ve got guys that I believe in that are more than capable of holding the fort down if that is the situation. It will be a great opportunity,” Jackson said, “We’ll figure it out. We have the versatility of big wing guys to play small. There are no concerns. The good teams figure it out and make no excuses.”
“I’ve been there too many times, I definitely feel his pain. Hopefully it’s not too serious,” Bogut said, “Our prayers are with him we hope it’s not anything serious.”
“I didn’t even see what happened,” Curry said, “He stayed down. You knew it was something more serious…It looked bad the way he walked off the court. Just pray for him and hope he’s back soon.”
“Never good seeing a teammate go down,” Thompson said, “I hope the best for J.O., he’s a great teammate.”
“It’s a big loss, especially his veteran leadership,” Iguodala said, “but we gotta pick it up collectively and next guy has to be ready. Coach always talks about the window opportunity opens up for somebody when an injury occurs, so guys have to be ready.”
“I took a full timeout because he means a lot to this basketball team,” Jackson said, “We pray that everything is fine with him. At the end of the day we have to have guys that will step up and be ready.”
The Warriors face the Jazz again in two days, this time in Salt Lake City.
The last theme of the night was the spectacular offensive show of Klay Thompson, who torched the Jazz for 25 points on 9-for-14 shooting and 5-for-8 from beyond the arc. He was so impressive, and he and his teammates had very good insights into his improved play, I’ll have to save that for a separate post.
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