It’s too bad we have to count the second quarter. And while moral victories don’t give you a win, you have to think that the Jazz realized that they can hang with the Spurs. And not only hang with them, but even dominate at some points.

The Spurs ended up shooting 54% for the game and most of that came from layups and backdoors. The Jazz outrebounded the Spurs by plenty but couldn’t stop the Spurs in the second. Hand it to the Spurs, they executed perfectly that quarter and that was the difference in the game.

To follow a couple of points from my preview, I didn’t think Deron drove enough in the first half. And then you could see in the second half where he took it to the Spurs and took over the game. And although it came in a loss, the dunk he made late in the game was sweet. Not quite Baron over AK, but I thought it made a statement. He’s probably going to have to have big games like this the remainder of the series.

Complete Box Score

Now if Bowen could only get called for a foul. Bowen should have been in foul trouble with his second in the first quarter. Williams made a nice drive and made the veteran head-fake to get Bowen in the air. He made contact with Williams on his shot, but all three refs had swallowed their whistles. There were times that the Jazz were playing against more than 5 players. And second, I thought Memo was going to be the difference in this series. So he goes out and lays a 3-14 stink bomb. He doesn’t seem to shoot well when he has to play defense, ala playing against Yao and Duncan. I like Sloan putting Hoffa on Duncan, he plays him pretty well. But couldn’t we put AK on Duncan and throw Okur on whatever center is being thrown in there?

Anyway, the Spurs played like they’re suppose to and got the win. I like Utah’s chances in game two once they’ve settled down now. They made the necessary adjustments at the half but it was a little too late. Let’s hope they carry this over to the next game.

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