The Golden State Warriors simply refuse to lose and probably don’t remember what it feels like, now with 22 consecutive wins dating back to last season’s NBA Finals, not letting the stubborn and difficult Utah Jazz get in their way of their perfection.
It’s 19-0, and the end isn’t in sight, unless the Jazz drawing blood from them was just the beginning of more difficult games. Harrison Barnes not playing obviously doesn’t make it easier, but it seems the Warriors have an answer to any obstacle in their way. Stephen Curry with his ability to put a whole bad day of shooting behind him in order to knock down every big shot in crunch time or just the fact that every little mistake on defense by the Jazz was punished with a wide open 3-pointer, the Warriors keep finding a way to suffocate the hope out of their opponents.
In Salt Lake City, with a Jazz team that’s great on defense and has the size and talent to match up with the Warriors on defense, it was possibly their biggest challenge yet. But beating the Clippers after being down by 23 turned on another switch for the Warriors, who lost a comfortable lead midway through the fourth quarter but the moment the Jazz had their own little lead, the Warriors simply turned things up to another level, something no one else in the NBA has.
Gordon Hayward with 24 points, Derrick Favors with 23 points, Alec Burks with 19 points. They were all difficult for the Warriors to handle, and the usefulness of Andrew Bogut is slowly waiwaning in his usefulness on both ends of the floor, but Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green (20 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists) and Shaun Livingston with a huge 3-pointer from the corner down the stretch, kept getting open and making shots.
Curry deserves a separate chapter from everyone. Yes, the work on defense of the four players who share the floor with him, their intelligence on offense and their own ability to make shots helps him be who he is. But Curry is still hitting shots with that insanely quick release which starts from very low and is impossible to stop, even with a defender in his face. He’s not keeping up with his numbers from the first two weeks of the season, but he still is a mile or two ahead from the rest of the NBA this season so far, just like his team.