Great game in Salt Lake today as the Warriors brought their run-and-gun style to town and put on a good show. The Warriors, also known as Suns-lite, are slowly and surely becoming "must-see TV" much like the Suns and todays game was fun to watch. The surprising part was, Utah played right with them and they showed that they have the athletes and the offensive talent to play this style for stretches if need be. I love watching good coaches and Jerry Sloan is definitely one. He let his guys run in this one and let them play in a good rhythm to keep up with the W's. Both teams scored at will except in the 3-Rd quarter and the point guard match-up was just special.
Baron Davis is one of the elite guards in the league, but he is playing another big, strong guard in Deron Williams who is like a younger Baron Davis. This matchup was just awesome in this game and is something to watch this entire series. Deron had 31-5-8 and Baron had 24-3-7 and they are both just getting started. They also kind of cancelled each other out, which is a win for the Jazz because the W's depend on Baron a lot more than the Jazz depend on Deron. Just like if Tony Parker cancels Steve Nash out, the Spurs are happy. If Baron is neutralized, then the Jazz bigs can put them on top. The W's play small and they couldn't defend Boozer or Okur. Boozer had 17-20 with 10 of the 20 boards coming on the offensive end. Thats ways too many offensive boards. Fittingly, the Jazz won the game on an offensive board and put-back by Boozer with the score tied at 112.
Jazz are a lot different from the Mavs and the W's are realizing that. They are bigger, stronger, tougher and they have a great point guard and a great low post scorer. Baron just ate up Jason Terry and Devin Harris against the Mavs, but Deron is punching him right back. This should be fun. The Jazz front-line is a load to handle. Okur hit 3 triples to total 21 points and AK-47 had 7 blocks to go with 13-7-4. He is back and the W's have to account for him now.
In Detorit, the Pistons shocked the Bulls again with another strong performance. The baby-Bulls are getting exposed in this series as nothing is going right for them. They shot 34% today with Gordon shooting 3/7, Hinrich 0/7 and Deng 4/12. It was one thing for Deng to out-athlete the old Heat team, but if Tayshaun Prince is in your way, it's a whole different ball-game. The jump-shooting Bulls are in trouble in this series as the Pistons can do everything well and the Bulls guards are stretched trying to defend RIP and Chauncey. C-Webb had a monster game shooting 10/11 for 22 points. This team is on a roll right now. Geame 3 should be interesting only because it's in Chicago.
Golden State @ Utah - 112-116
Chicago @ Detroit - 87-108
Playoff schedule for 05/08/2007
San Antonio @ Phoenix - Must win for the Suns. Something tells me they will.
New Jersey @ Cleveland - Can the King elevate the quality of play in this series?
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