© Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
A 34-point fourth quarter pushed the Warriors past the stingy Utah Jazz to a 115-108 victory Tuesday night, marking Golden State’s 16th win in the past 17 games.
Here are four thoughts.
Warriors eventually overcome plodding tempo
Despite the final score, this game was played at the Jazz’s pace. Most of their games are. Utah controls the tempo by running possessions deep into the shot clock and eliminating second-chance points. Their lack of offensive creators plays a role in the plodding tempo. With exception to Donovan Mitchell, the Jazz find it difficult to find quality shots without multiple passes.
That formula has given the Warriors fits throughout the past two years. They entered Tuesday having lost four of their past five games to the Jazz, including their most recent matchup, one month ago in Utah.
The slugfest started fittingly. Mitchell missed six of his first seven shots. The Jazz shot 26.9 percent in the first quarter. The Warriors held an 11-point lead after the first period while making just one of nine three pointers. They missed another six before making their next.
Stephen Curry struggled to get going. DeMarcus Cousins couldn’t find his stroke. Klay Thompson was uncharacteristically quiet throughout the first half. Golden State entered the break leading 47-44, despite making just four its 20 three-point attempts.
The Jazz inched their way back into the game, going 25 of 42 from the field in the second and third quarters. They took a three-point lead entering the fourth.
At some point, though, you sensed Curry would erupt. Midway through the fourth quarter, he decided it was time. He scored eight straight points to give the Warriors a 10-point lead. With Utah’s scoring struggles, that deficit was ultimately too great, and too late, for the Jazz to overcome. The Warriors strung together enough quality possessions, with timely shots from Kevin Durant and Thompson, to close it out.
Klay’s distorted finger
On the same night that Steve Kerr praised Thompson for his toughness and durability, the sharpshooter proved his coach right, again.
In the second quarter Tuesday night, Thompson dislocated his left ring finger. Without much of a grimace, he left the court with a distorted finger and later returned with it taped to his middle finger. He didn’t seem phased.
https://twitter.com/KNBR/status/1095533999789752321
After starting slow, the easily combustible Thompson came alive late, scoring eight points in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. Once he checked back into the game about four minutes later, he picked up where he left off, drilling a three-pointer to give the Warriors an 11-point lead with about four minutes remaining.
Thompson is averaging 27 points this month on 60 percent shooting from three. Remember his slow start to the season? That seems like lifetimes ago.
Kevin Durant’s hot February continues
It’s easy to take for granted what Durant does on a nightly basis. He rarely explodes like Curry and Thompson but almost never flops because he plays within the flow of the game and picks his spots so well. He has quietly put together a hyper-efficient February.
Through five February games, Durant has connected on nearly 64 percent of his field goals. The Jazz matchup was no exception. Durant finished 11 for 19 for 28 points. He made 10 of 13 two-point tries. His three-pointer with about 1:20 left in the game put the Warriors up eight points and helped seal the game.
Durant routinely makes the difficult look easy, whether flicking up 15-foot floaters or crossing up guards six inches shorter than him. It seems we are on the verge of another ridiculously efficient shooting stretch from the world’s most talented scorer.
How competitive would this playoff series be?
It’s never easy to gauge how a team’s regular-season success against the Warriors would translate to the playoffs. But it’s worth wondering whether this Jazz team, which has given Golden State more troubles than any other team throughout the past two seasons, would pose a somewhat competitive series.
It could very well end in a Warriors sweep. The Jazz could run out of scoring options as the Warriors rotate their slew of their wings to defend Mitchell. But playing in Utah isn’t easy. The Warriors have won there once in the past four matchups.
These two teams haven’t squared off in the playoffs with Mitchell pacing the Jazz and Rudy Gobert protecting the rim. But it’s a potential matchup this year, if the two teams continue on their trajectories, with the Jazz in the middle of the Western Conference Standings and the Warriors primed for the top seed.
At the very least, it would provide a different feel to a matchup than most any other we have seen during Golden State’s historic stretch.
