Well well, the Utah Jazz have made this a series with the Houston Rockets.
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The series now moves to Utah, where the fifth-seeded Jazz will hope to move towards a stunning upset of the top-seeded Rockets after claiming three of their four victories in the previous series with the Oklahoma City Thunder on their home court.
In Game 1, the Rockets did a tremendous job spacing the floor and leaving the 7-foot-1 Frenchman on an island in the paint. Knocking the Rockets out is not going to be an easy task, but the Jazz have the makeup of a team that could push Houston to a long, competitive series.
Harden’s performance – If Harden plays like he did in Game 1, Houston will win again.
The game’s Over/Under (O/U) has been set at 204.5 points with Houston opening as an 11.5-point favorite. Houston shot just 27.0 percent from the three-point line, which isn’t something that normally happens.
With the series now levelled up, it puts the Jazz in a great position as they head back to Salt Lake City where they’re a hard team to beat in front of their hostile crowd.
The Jazz scored 36 points in the first quarter, with Houston struggling to get going after a slow start. “There’s no answer. He might play bad because he’s human, but there’s nothing that you can conceivably come up with to stop him”.
Out of the locker room, Clint Capela picked up where Harden left off.
Kokoskov, 46, has spent much of the past two decades working as an assistant coach, spending time with the Los Angeles Clippers, Detroit Pistons, Suns, Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic before spending the last two years with the Jazz. After the game, Mitchell would downplay just how impressive the dunk was, saying he was simply trying to make a play on the ball. They’re simply searching for ways to slow him down a bit after he’s averaged nearly 36 points a game in five meetings this season.
Jazz center Rudy Gobert has been great all postseason for the Jazz.
“They made runs”, Ingles said.
“Give them credit”, Harden said.
Unsurprisingly, it was James Harden who did much of the damage. Donovan Mitchell has been tremendous all year for the Jazz, but he just doesn’t have enough help in this series. This led to 53 assists (or 0.7 per game) in the regular season, and 1.0 assist per game in the playoffs.
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Coming off a disappointing opener against the Rockets in the Western Conference semi-finals, the Jazz look to bounce back in Game 2.
