ShareThisBy SCOTT OSTLER
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, May 14, 2007
As the clocked ticked down on the Utah Jazz's 115-101 win over the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 on Sunday night, a fan in the expensive seats fled down a corridor saying, "Well, all good things must come to an end."
So this series was best-of-five? Who knew?
I think I saw one fan in the parking lot checking his dipstick with a yellow T-shirt. One bus was marked, "Ye of little faith."
Not all the Warriors' faithful are jumping off the bandwagon, but this is test-of-faith time.
If you're sticking around to see how this thing ends, what you should know is that this is a situation made for the Warriors. The wild dogs are underdogs to the bone, and a task like needing to win three in a row, two of the games in Utah, doesn't bother them.
The Warriors didn't go into Sunday night's game expecting to lose, but they weren't looking for another crazy one-sided win like Game 3.
"I think they (the Jazz) were embarrassed (by their Game 3 blowout loss)," said their coach, Jerry Sloan.
If they weren't embarrassed during that game, you can bet they were after Sloan critiqued their performance. Sunday they played Sloan ball. Hard, tough, efficient.
That's the type of player Sloan was and that's the type of game he coaches. Jerry West still has bruises from driving the lane on Sloan back in the 1960s. Sloan could foul you with his stare.
Sloan didn't make so much of a strategic adjustment from Game 3 to Game 4 as an attitude adjustment. He told his guys, essentially, "OK, you played one game your way, now we're going back to doing it my way."
As in: Eschewing the wild three-pointers early in the clock, pounding the ball in to Boozer, who had 10 shots in Game 3 and 19 Sunday. Boozer turned the wild dogs into puppies with his 34 points and 12 rebounds.
"(The Warriors are) quicker at every position," Sloan said. "We have to play with some semblance of order. ... I can't play (Boozer) if we're not going to get the ball inside. We settled for jump shots (in Game 3). We had opportunities to throw (Boozer) the ball in the last game and we didn't do it. If he gets to touch the ball, then the ball comes back (outside) and you have better shots."
And the Warriors have to play like they're quicker at every position. They've still got the element of surprise on their side because they're playing a whole different game than has been seen this deep in the playoffs in a long time _ several non-superstars who are too small and too quick. Some nights.
Sunday, as Nelson said, "We just didn't have enough juice. ... Baron (Davis) didn't have the same zip in his game tonight, he just didn't have it."
With Davis not penetrating, the Warriors in the second half reverted to the lazy guys who camp around the arc and pass the ball around. No cutting, slashing, driving. Just three-ball-a-palooza. They shot 5-for-21 from beyond the arc in the second half.
And they didn't put enough squeeze on Boozer, who shot 6-for-8 from the floor in the second half. Of course, he is Boozer.
"Boozer is a major, major star," Nelson said. "We can't handle him. Yao Ming couldn't handle him, he ate Yao Ming up."
Apparently Boozer is still hungry for light snacks, because he dominated the Warriors inside, although they did hold him to one offensive rebound.
So it will come down to a fascinating clash of styles, and it's almost as if the two teams are playing different sports. One is playing badminton and the other roller derby. The Jazz kill the Warriors on the backboard, just pulverize 'em. The Warriors run circles around the Jazz.
The Warriors run and run, the Jazz pound and pound.
They're almost a cartoon, the Jazz, with Boozer and AK-47 and Sgt. Sloan, muscle on muscle. They bring guys off the bench who look like NFL linemen. The Warriors go to their bench for ballet dancers.
Back in training camp, when the Jazz were eating steak and pumping iron, the Warriors were counting calories with Jenny Craig.
But the Warriors didn't get this far by being intimidated by more muscular teams, of which the NBA has about 29.
We know this: Neither team is going to change styles now. "We're not able to change our whole structure," Sloan said.
Looking at the last 10 minutes of Sunday's game, and looking at the next game in the far-off land of Utah, you have to think the Warriors don't have a chance.
But isn't that where you came in? Might as well stick around, put on that T-shirt one more night, Believe for one more game.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
