Warriors Jazz Series Predictions

This is the series that was supposed to be played between the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks in a in-state rivalry matchup. Golden State dominated the best team in the league and Utah climbed out of a two-game hole to reach the second round and shocking the world in the process.

Golden State fans shouldn’t expect to waltz through the postseason after knocking off the league’s best team. Utah has the homecourt advantage and is yet to lose a playoff game at home this season. The Jazz are also 2-0 at home against Golden State this season which can't be overlooked.

We’re about to see how much of a factor Don Nelson’s knowledge of Dallas really was. We’re also about to see if Utah stacks up better defensively against the Warriors’ offense.

Let’s breakdown the series by position to arrive at our winner. The edge in the backcourt has to go to Golden State but not by much. Baron Davis is slightly banged up but he has shown that he’ll be able to play through it. With Jason Richardson as his partner in crime, I think these two outplay Deron Williams and Derek Fisher.

The Jazz take the frontcourt battle as you might expect with Boozer making the Warriors pay for going small. If you thought he was putting up some big numbers against the Rockets, wait until you see him this series. With Kirilenko and Okur the Jazz have this matchup wrapped up.

You also have to like Utah’s bench as Nellie does not go very deep. Matt Harpring is the key here. His strength will allow him to matchup well with Golden State’s wings. There will be no defensive dropoff when he’s in the game.

I’m calling the coaching matchup a dead heat. Sloan’s defensive approach versus Nellie’s offense. You could also call this matchup structure versus chaos. I can't wait to see this. I know that Utah can play uptempo if it has to. We should see several shootouts.

As far as the overall outlook goes, the Warriors are on fire, but the Jazz have homecourt. This plays to a dead heat as well.

The bottom line is Utah’s ability to matchup defensively with Golden State’s scrappiness. This is something that Dallas was incapable of accomplishing. Boozer will also be unstoppable inside and ultimately the difference in this series.

We’ll take the Jazz in seven in this Western Conference Semifinal.
 

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Updated May 7th, 2007