The Warriors are becoming the story of these playoffs. I hate to say this as a Suns fan since the Suns have been the best show in all of basketball for the last 3 years. They still are the best runners and gunners in the association, but now that they are proven winners, most of the surprise element is gone. All of their underdog sentiment and the notions of an upset are also gone. For instance, they were expected to win the first round series against the Lakers rather easily and they did. This is where the Warriors come in. They are the new kids on the block playing the Suns style, but they are the 8-Th seeds who beat the top seed. They are the underdogs trying to upset everybody in their way. On top of that, they have a tough never-say-die attitude that has captured the nation's attention. Plus a superstar Baron Davis who has been as good as any one player in these playoffs.
All of these factors were on display today again in game 2 against the Jazz. As if thats not enough, this game took the dramatic element to whole another level with the whole D-Fish story. More on that later. This game started real bad for the Jazz with Deron Williams picking up 2 quick fouls. Boom-Dizzle was on fire and then Dee Brown hurt himself real bad falling on Okur and he had to leave with a bad neck or spinal injury. Through all of this, Utah was playing very well and again scoring at a high pace to keep up with the W's. They scored 63 in the first half and led at the break. The W's were playing their game, shooting 3's and making enough of them to stay in the game. It was clear the W's were not going to just go away. These guys can play, they shoot the 3's without any conscience and they are tough. Plus Boom-Dizzle was dazzling in this game. This guy is in a zone right now. He had 36-3-7 in this game.
For the Jazz, they were once again dominating the boards and it felt like Boozer and Okur were going to get every rebound in this game. On top of that, Okur seemed to hit every open 3 he got though he only shot 3/7 from 3 and had a total of 23 points to go with 18 boards. Booze had 30-13 game on 9/14 shooting. Deron was in foul trouble, but AK-47 was having a big game as he also played some point with Dee Brown out and Deron on the bench. This is when the dramatic happened. Derek Fisher, who missed game 1 with some issues with his kid, came to the arena very late in the game. He then changed and showed up in the third quarter to a huge ovation. Jerry Sloan put him in the game directly before he could even sit on the bench and the crowd went nuts. They needed D-Fish to play the point and though he didn't shoot, he did the other things.
The game was a see-saw battle and the W's stayed in it behind some good shooting by Baron and J-Rich. Jacko was having trouble shooting. That could have something to do with AK-47 defending him, who had another 6 blocks today. AK-47 is amazing. As a Suns fan, I always wonder how good he'll look in a Suns jersey and I know it'll be spectacular! This is very ironic because the Suns actually have one of the few players in the league who has a similar game to Ak-47 in Shawn Marion. But still I love Ak's defensive game and the Suns sure can use that.
Coming back to this game, the Warriors were right there for most of the game, though they had trouble containing or boxing out the Jazz. And then suddenly they hit a shot or two and now were leading by 5 late in the game. They had almost won it. Thats when bad things happened for the W's with less than a minute to go. First, D-Fish played great D on Baron and he stepped out of bounds to turn the ball over. The Jazz still didn't capitalize, but then W's started missing free throws. First Mikael Pietrus missed both with the W's leading by 3 and that gave the Jazz an opening. Then Baron got the ball for 2 freebies with 5 secs remaining and the W's leading by 1. He missed one and that meant the Jazz just needed a 2 to tie the game. They got that easily as the whole world knew Deron will drive and shoot or dish and still nobody could stop him. He just got close enough and took a jumper to send the game to OT. This guy is a stud. Al Harrington says he is the only guy he has seen who can post up Baron Davis!
The Warriors have been horrible free throw shooters the last 2 years and it finally bit them in the butt. It didn't hurt them in the first round series because most of the games were not that close. But this one was and the W's gave it away. Once it went to OT this way, they had no energy in them to fight back. Baron was visibly tired even in the 3-Rd quarter as he is getting knocked down on every drive to the hoop and he has to do so much for the W's on both offense and defense. So in OT, the Jazz won easily and fittingly, D-Fish hit a 3 to ice it, his only shot of the game. Tough loss for the W's, but something tells me they will tie it up in Oakland. The home crowd is going to be crazy. And these guys just don't quit. They know they could have come back home up 2-0 instead of down 0-2.
The story of the game was D-Fish though. He spoke after the game and said that his baby daughter had a cancer surgery in her eyes and asked everybody to check their kids out for this rare disease. Thats very thoughtful of him to say that under such stress. People say this guys is a true gentleman and he proved it today with his message and you could also tell from how even his ex-teammates from the Warriors were genuinely friendly to him after the game as they hugged him and wished him well.
Just another side story to an already fascinating series.
Golden State @ Utah - 117-127
Playoff schedule for 05/10/2007
Detroit @ Chicago - This series is pretty much Detroit's. This game is Chicago's last and only chance to change our mind.
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