Warriors obliterate Jazz as Buddy Hield shines again

10/25/2024 11:52 PM

The perfect season continues.

When the Golden State Warriors crushed the Portland Trail Blazers on opening night, winning 139-104 (with the score later getting upgraded to 140-104), it took a moment for things to get started. The intriguing large starting five was a little funky out of the gates, and the team needed time to find some rhythm.

The same thing happened in Golden State's second game, a road contest against the Utah Jazz on Friday night. The offense looked clunky in the opening minutes, and the defense a step slow, as the Warriors quickly fell behind 10-2 in a stretch that seemed to feature more whistles than points. Utah was playing fast, aggressive, and active, and the Warriors ... well, the Warriors were not. With the team not even looking competitive on the glass, Steve Kerr called a timeout trailing 15-6.

And then the Dubs dominated.

They showed off their versatility, with Andrew Wiggins — the shooting guard in the starting lineup — sliding all the way up to small-ball power forward out of the timeout, in a lineup alongside Steph Curry, Gary Payton II, Buddy Hield, and Draymond Green. On the first possession out of the timeout, Hield picked up where he left off on Wednesday, draining a three. And just like that, the Warriors were off to the races.

A step-back three by Curry with just under four minutes remaining allowed the Warriors to finally catch up to the Jazz, and they soon took their first lead. Hield was electric with eight points, Kevon Looney helped fix the aggression in the paint with six points, and the Dubs ended the quarter on a 26-9 run, to take a 32-24 lead.

It was a grit-and-grind start to the second quarter for both teams, as it took nearly two minutes for either team to score. The game slowed down and got a little bit sloppy and chaotic, though Golden State's lead never felt challenged. And then, once again, it was Hield who led the charge, with a 16-point quarter. The spark he provided seemed to inspire the rest of the team, as suddenly the Warriors were playing with energy, style, pizzazz, and aggression. Thanks to 24 first-half points from Hield, they led 56-42 at halftime.

The starting lineup might have struggled to start the game, but it didn't struggle when given another opportunity in the third quarter. They positively exploded out of the locker room, rattling off a 13-3 run and forcing a Utah timeout. That run would eventually balloon to 18-4, giving Golden State a 74-47 advantage, and marking the game as uncompetitive with a quarter-and-a-half still remaining.

From there, there was nothing to do but pile up the score and run out the clock, and keep resting players. On Wednesday, no Warriors played more than 25 minutes. On Friday, Curry was the only player to surpass that mark, with 27 minutes. They ended the third quarter leading 94-70, and their bench unit continued to obliterate Utah in the fourth quarter ... even when the Jazz kept some starters in late into a lost game.

The final tally? A 127-86 win, and a thoroughly dominant start to the 2024-25 NBA season.

Hield continued his brilliant start with the Warriors, dropping 27 points on 10-for-14 shooting, including 7-for-9 from distance, and adding four rebounds and six assists with neither a turnover nor a foul. He's come off the bench to lead the Warriors in scoring in each of his two games with the Dubs, and now has 49 points in just 35 minutes.

He not only led the Warriors, but led a brilliant bench charge, with Golden State's reserves outscoring Utah's by a whopping 80-49 margin. That was necessary, since the Dubs starters struggled to score: Trayce Jackson-Davis shot a perfect 6-for-6, but Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Draymond Green, and Jonathan Kuminga combined to shoot just 12-for-39. Wiggins more than made up for it though, as he helped set the aggressive tone for the Warriors with 13 rebounds, and played a very strong defensive game.

The Warriors are now 2-0, which comes after a 6-0 preseason. Yes, their two wins are against two of the weaker teams in the Western Conference, but they've also come on the road, by a combined score of 267-190. It's hard to do much better than that.

But a bigger test awaits on Sunday, when the Dubs host the LA Clippers at 5:30 p.m. PT. After these performances, I positively can't wait to watch them again.