No Lauri Markkanen for the Jazz, no Stephen Curry or Andrew Wiggins or Draymond Green for the Warriors. Luckily there was coffee left, and it took us a lot to keep an eye on this late-night Jazz – Warriors, because the outcome was… so Utah Jazz.
The house stats of the thriller / western of the night is right here
It doesn’t mean a whole lot and it won’t weigh heavily after 82 games, but it ultimately says…a lot about what this 2022-23 Jazz is all about. It started off very strong (10-3), no one believed it, or at least everyone said so: “don’t panic, it’s a flash in the pan, they’re going to start losing”. Then they started to lose (2-8) and everyone then went with their little “I told you”, except that, decidedly, it seems that Will Hardy’s players have not finished surprising us.
Tonight ? An offensive festival, facing the Warriors who are a little too playful and permissive, and this year you mustn’t play that with the Jazz on pain of… quite simply losing. What can we learn from this match? The homogeneity of the group first of all, with these ten guys or not far capable of scoring, of weighing on a match. We think, for example, of this big thing by Walker Kessler, a huge scarecrow that freaks out across the screen and who still dropped five potatoes on opposing attackers last night. Potatoes there could have been at the very end of the match, when Jordan Clarkson and Jonathan Kuminga wanted to compare their level of study in the position of boxers and closed fists.
Fortunately for the show, it is with a ball that we will finally experience our best emotions, and despite the very big match between Kuminga and Jordan Poole, it’s rather Malik Beasley who will give hope to a whole people with a huge shot from the parking lot before offering us with his guys the action of the evening. Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kelly Olynyk who validate their big wild hustle game by saving the homeland, Malik Beasley who treats Fontecchio, and a Simone Fontecchio who puts whipped cream on his most beautiful cake in NBA career (18 points), all happy to finally be the hero of a basketball match, he who had already been that of the quarter-final of the last Euro against France.
SIMONE FONTECCHIO FOR THE WIN OFF THE STEAL!@utahjazz WIN ???? pic.twitter.com/yyclOCRtAg
— NBA (@NBA) December 8, 2022
Warriors record 13-13, Jazz record 15-12. Sometimes a few numbers are worth more than words, we don’t say that Kelly Olynyk will be MVP of the Finals, we just say that on December 8th we shivered in front of a Jazz – Warriors, and that Kevon Looney had nothing to do with it- inside.