Utah Jazz defeat the Golden State Warriors

Jazz get 6th win in a row on the road against the Warriors – 2/19/10

// February 20th, 2010 // Game Summary

What’s crazy is that it’s been 8 years since we had a road win streak that good. But to say that we have a winning record on the road feels good. With the push the Jazz have been making over the past month and a half it now feels like we have really accomplished something with our winning road record and the fact that we are only a half game out of 2nd place in the West.

At the start of this game, I commented to a friend, “If Boozer remembers that they have no answer for him and he dominates them like he ALWAYS has, the Jazz will win.” Well, 30 points, 16 rebounds later from Booze and the Jazz came away with the victory. Ever since we played Golden State in 2006-2007, Boozer has been able to clean up the court against the Warriors. Tonight, he finished 13 for 24 but was forced into committing 4 TOs…which have been killing the Jazz lately. Thankfully, after 12 first half turnovers, the Jazz only finished with 13. After cruising to a 27 point lead the Jazz, in the 4th quarter, decided scoring good baskets was no longer a priority. Consequently, we went over 7 minutes without a field goal. Thankfully, the Warriors are a streaky team, at best, and were not able to sustain their run after they cut it to around 10.

Mehmet Okur returned home yesterday and was father to a new baby girl this morning to many congratulations to him. I think the Jazz would have only used him sparingly anyway since he is a bit slow for the Warriors up-tempo style. Wesley Matthews started in place of Ronnie Brewer and had a somewhat disappointing night. He only went 3 for 9 from the floor and missed all 3 of his 3 point attempts. Sadly, Ronnie Brewer played his first game with the Memphis Grizzlies tonight and left the game in a wheelchair after suffering some kind of hamstring injury. What bad luck! That injury looks to be at least costing Brewer a few missed games, hopefully nothing more.

CJ Miles was a spark for the Jazz in the first quarter going 5 of 6 from the field and scoring 12 quick points. He went cold after that making only 1 of 5 of his next shots and committing 3 turnovers. He is playing more and more like Jamal Crawford these days except Crawford is shooting 46% from the field and 38% from downtown totaling 18 points per game. Turns out those are half-decent stats plus he’s hit some clutch shots for the Hawks. CJ Miles’ clutch shots? Well…um…he nearly air-balled 2 3-pointers tonight. So…there’s that.

Williams made some comments to the media earlier today about his displeasure about Ronnie B being traded away. He clearly looked agitated about it and it seems like he took it with him to the court. His shooting woes continued tonight only going 3 for 13 from the field, 2 for 6 from beyond the arc. His remaining made shot was off an alley-oop. That leaves 10 missed shots for DWill. I really hope he can put the trade behind him and realize that we have capable players to fill Brewer’s position and concentrate on his own game…which is struggling. Great win for the Jazz though!