Warriors must improve on the glass
Rebound.
"I don't expect to win the rebounding game (against the Jazz)," said Warriors coach Don Nelson. "But I can't get outrebounded by 18 or 20 rebounds. That's just too much. We're going to have to do a better job definitely of that, of all being rebounders because they have a tremendous advantage in certain areas and that's one of them."
The Jazz had a 54-36 edge on the boards on Monday night. The fourth quarter was even more glaring, as the Jazz rallied from a seven-point deficit to win by four. Utah had 15 rebounds in the fourth to just seven for Golden State. The Jazz, in fact, had as many offensive rebounds as the Warriors had total boards in the final period.
The biggest offensive board of the night came with the game tied 112-112 with under 20 seconds remaining. After Utah's Mehmet Okur missed a 3-point jumper, Carlos Boozer got the rebound and scored with 17 seconds left, giving the Jazz a 114-112 lead.
"We were one rebound away from having the last shot to win the game on their homecourt," pointed out Warriors point guard Baron Davis.
"The board is open to Boozer the way we are playing him," said Nelson. "It's almost pick your own poison. We're trying not to let him have easy catches and hurt us that way, but it did open the board up for him to get 10 offensive rebounds. We may have to rethink that and how we are playing him."
While the final result of the first game was disappointing, the Warriors say they don't want to make too many changes.
"It was a great game. We did have a chance to win that game," said Nelson. "I don't want to over-react on anything, but there are certain obvious things we have to do better on. Rebounding is one of them."
Defending Jazz guard Deron Williams is another one. Williams scored 31 points with eight assists in Game 1.
"We have to make some adjustments against (Williams)," said Jason Richardson. "He played big. He won the game for them. We can't let him have big games like that, where he's scoring and dishing the ball out ... He reminds me of a young Baron Davis."
Davis, the Warriors star point guard, had 24 points Monday. He knows the winner of his battle with Williams will go a long way to determining a winner in the series.
"Both teams rely heavily on their point guards to score and to make plays, so that's going to be overall deciding factor in this series," Davis said.
The Warriors certainly remained confident at practice Tuesday.
"I want us to continue to play at a high level and continue to play the way we play," summed up Nelson. "If we do that, I'll let the chips fall where they may."
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com
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