SALT LAKE CITY — Maybe it was the altitude. Maybe the Warriors were just due for one of those nights. Either way, the team that had won its past nine looked discombobulated all night Wednesday against the Utah Jazz. It didn’t take until the final buzzer to know the streak wouldn’t reach 10. When it mercifully sounded, the final tally was 111-85.
Initially it appeared as though the Warriors would have no problem extending their season-best stretch of basketball to double digits. The Jazz were playing without all-NBA defender Rudy Gobert, as well as key reserve Rudy Gay and hadn’t yet gotten their returns from a trade deadline move earlier in the day. Golden State raced out to a 13-0 lead with everyone but Steph Curry contributing to the scoring column.
But the opening quarter hadn’t even come to a close by the time the early advantage had evaporated. After the 13-0 start, the Jazz outscored the Warriors 111-72. Utah cemented its lead with a 34-9 run that started less than four minutes out of intermission and extended into the fourth quarter.
To beat a team like the Jazz — the toughest rim defenders in the NBA, even absent Gobert — the Warriors need to be able to hit from long range. It was a bad night to shoot 16 of 43 (37.2%) from 3-point range. Utah locked down the paint with nine blocks — seven by Hassan Whiteside, who tormented the Warriors all night — and numerous other altered shots.
The Warriors badly missed the sharpshooting of Klay Thompson, who sat out the first night of their set of back-to-back games, and the post presence and facilitating ability of Draymond Green.
The Warriors made only 5 of their 14 attempts from inside the circle (35.7%), almost half the rate of the league average from close range (64.6%). The Jazz dominated the Warriors inside the paint to the tune of a 48-20 differential.
Whiteside’s 17 rebounds helped Utah own the boards, 61-46.
It didn’t help that while the Jazz got scoring contributions up and down their roster — 10 players with at least 6 points — the Warriors essentially carried dead weight at the end of their bench.
Damion Lee and Gary Payton II played a combined 49 minutes and contributed zero points. By the time the game was officially out of hand and Golden State pulled its last starter — with about 5 minutes to go and a double-digit deficit — Utah’s reserves had outscored the Warriors’ bench 40-15.
The Warriors will have a chance to quickly right the ship against the lowly New York Knicks in less than 24 hours and will have reinforcements in the form of Thompson, who sat out Wednesday but will return Thursday night, and possibly Nemanja Bjelica, whose back spasms that kept him home from this trip have eased up, according to Kerr.
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