Last night’s Game 1 showed that a lot of notions people around the country (myself included) had about this series are inaccurate, and in some cases flat-out wrong. Looking at a few of them:

1) The Jazz are plodding neanderthals who can’t hang with the Warriors’ speed.
False. Game 1 provided the highest point outputs for either team in the playoffs. The Jazz might not be as good at the running game as Golden State, but D-Will, Harpring, Boozer and AK can hold their own, and Dee Brown can give a boost of speed as well. Whether the Jazz can hold that tempo over a long series remains to be seen. But these aren’t your father’s Jazzmen — they’re far more athletic and offensively-minded. And check Game 1’s box score: the Jazz had 25 fast break points to the Warriors’ 19. That stat is a little misleading, because the Warriors’ speed doesn’t just manifest itself on the fast break — they go through their offensive sets much faster as well. But it’s still a telling statistic.

2) Carlos Boozer can score at will over the mostly smaller Warrior defenders.
Sort of false. One-on-one, this is still probably true. But the 1-2-2 zone the Warriors employed last night was tremendously effective. It allowed Golden State defenders to front Carlos, gamble on steals, and deny him entry passes in the low post. And when he did get the ball, he was swarmed immediately and couldn’t move the ball around fast enough to make the Warriors pay. He still got his on the offensive glass, but Coach Sloan will need to look at the game tape and figure out a way to break up that zone. Props to Nellie for a smart play there.

3) The Warriors are really small.
Not really. On the interior, they might be, but as mentioned above, the zone they’re using mitigates their size disadvantage on defense. And on the perimeter, they’re actually pretty big. Then you have Baron Davis using his fullback-like body to post up Deron Williams (which didn’t always work, but sometimes was very effective). Don’t call the Warriors small. Unorthodox position-wise maybe, but not small.

4) Because the Warriors are small, they will get out-rebounded in every game.
Both true and false. The Jazz probably will get more rebounds in every game this series, but this is less a result of Golden State’s lack of size (as discussed above) and more because the Warriors simply don’t crash the boards very hard. As soon as the ball leaves a Jazz shooter’s hands, whether the shot is in or out, three Warriors are streaking down court on the fast break. Similarly, they get back very quickly on defense to set up that zone and prevent Utah’s interior players from establishing early post position. Nellie mentioned in the post-game press conference last night that he needs more rebounds from Al Harrington, but when Harrington is chucking in perimeter shots and running the fast break, he can’t get in and bang with Booz and Memo for rebounds (and it takes a lot of banging to get the ball away from those two, not to mention Harpring).

5) The Warriors will only go as far as Baron Davis can take them.
False. So much emphasis has been placed on the Baron-vs.-Deron matchup, but last night showed that it’s pretty much a push. Deron is physical enough to handle when Baron tries to post up, and with Baron’s hammy troubles, he doesn’t have the speed to blow past Deron on the perimeter. So that means that Golden State will have to win games on the efforts of others. Fortunately for them, that’s what their whole team philosophy is about — move the ball, push the pace, get it to the open man when the lane collapses to cover penetration. They shoot 30 3-pointers a game, for goodness’ sake. If the Warriors win this series, it will be because Stephen Jackson, Jason Richardson and Matt Barnes make the open shots that Baron Davis will set them up for. He’s the catalyst, but not the end result.

If Game 1 has taught us anything (and if we can make snap judgments after just one game), this series should be a joy to watch, and highly competitive. Looking forward to it.
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Layton Shumway is the copy chief for Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe. You can reach him at lss83@byu.net.

Well, so much for not running.

The Jazz beat the Warriors at their own game (more or less) Monday night, squeaking out a 116-112 win. The game featured 16 lead changes, 20 ties, and two point guard juggernauts going head-to-head with marvelous results. Our own Deron Williams came out on top, leading all scorers with 31 points to go with 8 assists and 5 rebounds. He also played physical defense against Golden State’s Baron Davis, who got 24 points and 7 assists but couldn’t seem to turn it on when he really needed to (perhaps bothered by his sore hamstring, which D-Will admitted he tried to exploit).

I’m hoping this performance puts to rest any fears from around the league about how boring and physical and generally offensive to basketball the Jazz are. Just because the Jazz prefer NOT to run doesn’t mean they CAN’T run. (And thanks, Jerry Sloan, for blowing smoke about that fact, but you didn’t fool anyone.) This game was beautiful to watch, intense, competitive, physical (but that’s the playoffs, baby), and downright exciting. Folks around the league are realizing now that this series might be fun after all, and not just because of the Warriors.

I do hope we’re able, as Matt Harpring said, to be versatile and slow things down when we need to, and not get into a track meet with this team ALL the time. It does play into Golden State’s favor, even if they were a bit surprised last night. One other side note — keep in mind that the Warriors don’t usually play at altitude. That could affect their fatigue, no matter how much they want to push the tempo.

Game 2 Wednesday night. Let’s get it done, gentlemen.