There were sparks and bullets in the Delta Center sky Thursday night, for the second showdown in four days between the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors. But like last Monday, it was again Stephen Curry and his Californian friends who won (137-140).
In a match of the heart of the ranking, between two teams hunting for a place in the play-offs and having the same number of victories before the meeting (26), this final hot point before the break of the All-Star weekend was nothing trivial.
Moreover, we dropped everything on both sides, in an unbridled offensive fantasy, ending with 42 three-point baskets out of 91 cumulative attempts, or a resounding percentage of 46.1% behind the arc!
In this little game, Golden State often knows how to do it well. And if the Jazz (22 out of 49 at 3 pts) was also able to raise the cursor, like its rear, Keyonte George (33 pts at 9/16 at 3 pts), who does not had never taken so much all season behind the arc, the Warriors (20 out of 42 in this exercise) reminded for the umpteenth time that this remained a house specialty.
Klay Thompson comes off the bench for the first time since 2012
The fact remains that the seven-time NBA champions gave themselves a real scare, squandering an 18-point lead at the end of the third quarter and letting the Jazz come back to one point 40 seconds from the end in a final stampede. Fortunately, the Warriors had a key weapon on the bench, in this case, Klay Thompson. No longer used off the bench since March 11, 2012 and his rookie year, Thompson, in offensive difficulty this season, has visibly had a good time being placed in reserve, achieving last night his best mark of the year (35 pts) including a 7 out of 13 good quality behind the arc.
“In this situation, you can do two things: either you sulk, or you go ahead and respond,” said Thompson, although he was not very happy the same morning upon learning of the coach’s choice. A paid option that Steve Kerr could however repeat in the future.
