Jazz Fall Short in the East Bay

On Friday November 5, the Jazz squared off against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland, CA. The Jazz got off to a hot 6-0 start and all things pointed to another Utah win in the Bay Area. However, things didn't go according to plan. Little things like Monta Ellis hitting a runner at the buzzer to end the Half and Ronnie Price Botching a wide open dunk in the 2nd half indicated that this was not going to be Utah's Night. Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson combined for 28 points, which is half of what they usually combine for. Deron Williams had 23 points and 6 Assists, so he showed up to play. CJ Miles went down early in the first half, and that hurt the efforts of the bench. Gordon Hayward came in and didn't do much to replace him. Hayward went scoreless. Miles had 12 points, Bell had 7 points, and Kirilenko had 4, all coming off of free throws. The key that I saw was that neither team could shoot. The Jazz shot 39.5% from the field. The Warriors shot 37.6 %. The only reason the Warriors won was because they made more shots, and took more shots. Raja Bell was off, Andrei Kirilenko was non-existent, and Millsap and Jefferson both were struggling to find their groove. Perhaps the only good thing to take away from their loss was that they didn't give up lot of points. They struggled from the line (70%), and couldn't find a rhythm.
The Jazz played like they had just gotten their behinds kicked the night before out east. However, they didn't. They were coming off a win 2 nights previous at home against the Toronto Raptors. The source of their struggles is unexplainable. It's something that can't be explained. But a couple of things stood out to me as I watched the game from the upper bowl of the arena. First off, the Jazz need their role players like Ronnie Price, Earl Watson, Gordon Hayward, and especially Raja Bell to step up when things aren't going well for the stars. The other thing I learned was that they need Jefferson and Millsap to have good nights. If they struggle the team struggles. Finally, the Jazz will greatly like having Mehmet Okur back in the line up. His shooting abilities will help them out a lot and be needed when other guys are struggling. I pray that the Jazz won't have many games like this. The final score was 85-78.