Playing the Jazz will hurt Warriors

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Playing the Jazz will hurt Warriors
Golden State expects Utah to hit hard during series
By Eric Gilmore, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Article Last Updated: 05/08/2007 02:38:12 AM PDT

SALT LAKE CITY ─ The days of tormenting poor Dirk Nowitzki are over for
the Warriors.

For that matter, so are the days of beating down the entire cast of
underachieving Dallas Mavericks, who hit the canvas so willingly against
the Warriors in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

It took a blink of the eye Monday night for the Warriors to realize that
facing the Utah Jazz in Round 2 was going to be a much different story.

Soft, mentally weak players don't fly in Utah. Never have as long as Jerry
Sloan has been coaching this team, which seems like forever.

Sloan was a hard-nosed player. Now he's a hard-nosed coach. His players
follow his lead.

Of that, the Warriors have no doubt after suffering a 116-112 loss to Utah
in Game 1 at EnergySolutions Arena.

If the Warriors are going to win this series, it's going to take much more
effort, much more energy and much more mental toughness than they ever
dreamed about expending against Dallas.

And it's going to take a much higher tolerance to pain. Because playing the
Jazz is going to hurt.

Jazz point guard Deron Williams is a bull in basketball shorts. Forward
Carlos Boozer has muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. Forward Matt
Harpring never saw a rib he didn't like to hammer with a forearm or elbow.
Forward Andrei Kirilenko is as strong as he is wiry. Center Mehmet Okur is
just plain big.

Utah wants to beat you and beat you up.

To the Warriors credit, they went toe-to-toe with Utah, trading blows as if
they were Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, each one carrying an extra
80 pounds.

With the game on the line and the hostile, home crowd going Oracle-crazy,
the Jazz didn't fold, a la Dallas. It made big play on top of big play. 

Boozer's putback put the Jazz ahead to stay 114-112 with 17 seconds left.
After Stephen Jackson missed from long range, Harpring grabbed the rebound,
drew a foul and added two free throws.

Game over.

The Jazz defended hard from the outset, contesting every shot. Warriors who
drove to the hoop often paid a price, getting knocked to the floor. Often
without benefit of free throws.

The refs, as they say, were letting them play. Warriors forward Matt Barnes
was so furious that he had to take an early seat to cool off to avoid drawing
a technical.

Before Game 1, this series was hyped as a battle between the little
helter-skelter Warriors and the big, semi-plodding Jazz with its precision,
methodical offense.

Well, the Warriors are pretty small. And the Jazz is pretty big.

But plodding? Methodical? Utah blew that concept apart in a furious first
half, scoring 63 points to the Warriors' 66. The Jazz hoisted 3-point shots
as if Don Nelson were coaching both teams, hitting five of 12 in the first
half.

The Jazz knows how to score. It averaged 101.5 points per game during the
regular season, seventh best in the NBA.

This is not the same type of Utah team that was swept by the run-and-gun
Warriors 3-0 in an opening-round playoff series in 1989. That Jazz team
relied almost exclusively on John Stockton and Karl Malone running the
pick-and-roll.

This Jazz team can run up and down the court when it wants a break from
pounding you inside and back-picking you full of bruises.

"Totally different teams," Nelson said before the game.
"I don't even reflect back."

Beating Utah on the road has never been easy for the Warriors.

They went 0-2 this year during the regular season and 2-21 the past 12 years.
You can blame a lot of that disparity the Warriors ineptitude and on Malone
and Stockton, whose statues appear side-by-side outside of EnergySolutions
Arena, at the corner of Karl Malone and John Stockton drives.

In the first round, Nelson played the underdog card to the max. He went on
and on about his band of overmatched "schmoes" facing the big, bad Dallas
Mavericks.

For Round 2, Nelson had no choice but to adjust.

Sloan must have watched Nelson's routine against Dallas and taken notes.
During his team's shootaround Monday, he sounded as if his team would need
divine intervention to beat the Warriors.

Sloan said Davis was "probably the best point guard in the game." The
Warriors, he said, are "tremendously talented." Tough and hard-nosed, too.

Sloan spent most of his time talking about the Warriors' quickness advantage.

"I don't know if we can do anything they can do," Sloan said. "Still have to
play the game. Happy to be here."

Told of Sloan's underdog routing, Nelson started laughing

"Where did he learn that from?" Nelson asked. "We can smell a fox."


Contact Eric Gilmore at [e-mail]. 

                              http://www.insidebayarea.com/sports/ci_5844410 

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