(1)Golden State Warriors versus (5) Utah Jazz
“God damn draymond loves to tease people with his statlines.” – TDS_Gluttony
“The Jazz, after having won a Game 7 on the road against a chronically underachieving team, will face the Golden State Warriors in the second round of the playoffs. On the other side of the Western Conference, the San Antonio Spurs will face off against an incredible offensive team coached by Mike D'Antoni.
This sentence applies to both the 2007 playoffs and the 2017 playoffs.”-ramsick
“CP3 to Pierce during the 3rd quarter: "I'm gonna let your career end in LA”- i4LOVE4Pie4
The other side of the Western Conference semifinals contains two teams who are also extremely stark in contrast.
As with the San Antonio/Houston, this series will also be all about pace. While it is obvious that Golden State Warriors should be favored, this will be the most unique team they will face in the entire playoffs.
See, Utah is about minimizing possessions and slowing the pace. They also play a traditional center big minutes. Golden State is used to playing up-tempo teams or teams who gun for threes the way they do, but if you had to draft a script that would be the reason Golden State loses a series:
1) You limit points in the restricted area (Utah is ranked 8th)
2) You have multiple pick & roll ballhandlers so Curry is unable to hide on defense (this is why Los Angeles gets killed by both teams since Paul and Griffin are the only legit ball handlers)
3) You destroy them on the glass (Utah isn’t highly ranked in offensive rebounds per say, but they do have better rebounders overall)
I’m not saying Utah is going to win, but they have the team make-up to win if everything perfectly falls in place.
Compared to Los Angeles, Golden State do have taller, better perimeter defenders.. Kevin Durant included. If this is the old Golden State team, I’d be slightly wary but Durant is the swing that truly puts a wrench into Utah’s plan of attack. Durant is too talented defensively and too talented to guard one-on-one. Utah may have multiple pick-and-roll ball handlers, but they do not have another Gordon Hayward.
Gobert’s minutes may be limited to how long Golden State plays traditional and then he’s done. I hope Snyder isn’t foolish enough to think he stands a chance against the reputable line-up of death. Favors actually isn’t a half-bad idea to play against that esteemed line-up. He’s not as athletic as Green, but he did a pretty great job in the DeAndre/Paul pick-and-roll defensively; they otherwise wouldn’t here. Of course, Curry is an entirely different offensive beast from Paul, but his defense in the absence of Gobert was stellar. To be fair, Golden State has yet to face that small Utah Jazz team in the regular season.
Utah has to do its best to attack wherever Curry is, because during death line-up times, we might witnesses the most switchiest series ever. I can’t even wrap my head around the potential wing rotations both teams will use; I’m just going to say Utah doesn’t have Durant.
How about I make this simple this way:
Golden State win if: Line-up of death still can’t be stopped, Golden State has the superior wing efficiency, pace is up-tempo to fast, Utah doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance in guarding Durant
Utah wins if: Utah follows the script I wrote above, Favors is a better small-ball player than Green, ready or not Curry couldn’t hide, Gordon Hayward somehow has a better series than Durant (or maybe Durant isn’t healthy), the tempo is slow as hell
Golden State in six