Can Gordon Hayward and the Jazz challenge the Warriors in a long series? What are the most important things to watch?
Our 5-on-5 crew breaks down Golden State-Utah and predicts the winner.
1. What's the most important thing to watch for the Warriors?
Tim MacMahon, ESPN.com: Kevin Durant's health. Golden State is good enough to be a contender with a hobbled Durant, who has missed time lately with knee and calf injuries. The Warriors are clear favorites with a healthy Durant, arguably the NBA's biggest mismatch. He looked pretty darn good in the two games he played in the first round, averaging 21 points in 28.1 minutes while shooting 59.3 percent from the floor and 50 percent from 3-point range.
Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Insider: Health is the obvious answer, because if Golden State's big four are functioning at a high level, this isn't likely to be much of a series.
Beyond that, the Warriors' ability to get paint points will be crucial. They need to keep Rudy Gobert moving around -- if he's able to shut down the lane, then the lengthy perimeter defenders of Utah can push up on the Warriors' great shooters and force them into more pick-and-roll situations than they usually like to run.
Jeremias Engelmann, ESPN Insider: Once again I expect the Warriors to take the series without too much trouble. So, most importantly, they should monitor everyone's minutes to minimize the chance of injury. Also, they shouldn't let the games turn into a grind.
Micah Adams, ESPN Stats & Info: Health. Durant missed two games in the first round and they are still waiting for Shaun Livingston and Matt Barnes to return. There's only so much you can control when it comes to injury prevention, but if the Warriors can limit minutes by putting away games early, it could pay dividends later in June. Although they won this round in five games last season against Portland, they actually trailed for more minutes than they led in what was a highly competitive series. Avoiding a similar type of series could play a role in managing injuries.
Kevin Pelton, ESPN Insider: How Mike Brown manages the series, under the presumption Steve Kerr won't be back this round at the very least. Based on the two games he coached against Portland, Brown might be a little more aggressive in the pursuit of winning a single game than Kerr, who typically keeps his eyes on the bigger picture. But we haven't yet seen Brown have to adjust Golden State to an opponent with as many options as the Jazz and Quin Snyder.
2. What's the most important thing to watch for the Jazz?
Adams: Can Gordon Hayward stay true to his game when Stephen Curry, Durant or Klay Thompson inevitably catches fire for an extended stretch? Though he has had a couple of big scoring games, that's not really Hayward's forte. Can he stay within himself and not try to match one of Golden State's bucket-getters shot-for-shot?
Doolittle: Tempo. Utah has to dominate the glass, minimize turnovers and extract the maximum out of every possession, in terms of both efficiency and shot-clock usage. And even then, the Warriors might still sweep.
Pelton: Whether Utah can score efficiently against the league's second-best defense. Among teams that advanced, only the Toronto Raptors performed worse on offense during the first round relative to their opponent's regular-season level. The Jazz struggled to score in the one matchup Hayward played against the Warriors in the regular season -- albeit with George Hill and Derrick Favors sidelined -- posting the team's worst offensive rating of the year. This is the matchup that really favors Golden State.
MacMahon: Can go-to guy Hayward get in a groove? He has struggled mightily against the Warriors the past two seasons. His field goal percentage (31.6) against Golden State is the worst against any team during that span. Then again, Hayward's shooting woes against the Clippers in the regular season (38.1) certainly didn't carry over into the first round, when he averaged 23.7 points while shooting 46.9 percent from the floor and 44.7 percent from behind the arc.
Engelmann: The Jazz need to slow the pace, optimally to a crawl; otherwise they'll end up steamrolled like the Spurs in their Game 1 against the Rockets. They'll also have to experiment a bit in terms of rotations. For instance, I'm not sure they can start Boris Diaw for seven games as they did against the Clippers, given his conditioning level.
3. Who will win the pace battle, and how much does it matter?
Doolittle: It's the most important factor of the matchup. The Warriors can win at something near Utah's preferred pace, but the Jazz cannot compete if the Warriors play at their normal tempo.
By keeping Golden State out of transition, the Jazz can really mix and match at power forward next to Gobert and try to punish the Warriors in the paint with big lineups that feature Favors at the 4. And even then, the Warriors might still sweep.
Engelmann: The Warriors will, and it'll matter quite a lot. The Jazz will have trouble defending the Warriors' transition offense, as so many players on the Warriors roster can shoot from outside. Unfortunately for the Jazz, the Warriors defend so well that they won't have to take the ball out of the net too often, and can simply start running after they gain possession.
Adams: The Jazz have had more success dictating pace against the Warriors than any team in the NBA over the past two seasons, holding them to 96.1 possessions per 48 minutes, which was their slowest against any team. That being said, the Warriors still won five of the six meetings, so in the grand scheme of things it probably won't matter too much.
Pelton: A slight edge to Golden State, I suppose. The two regular-season meetings at full strength were among Utah's seven fastest games of the regular season, per Basketball-Reference.com. While they were slower than the Warriors' usual pace, they weren't nearly that kind of outliers. Ultimately, I think that the way the games are going will probably dictate the pace (in terms of opportunities for Golden State to run secondary transition) rather than the other way around.
MacMahon: It'd better be the Jazz or this will be a brief series. Utah's only chance to scare the Warriors is to make them play in mud. Utah has to be patient and efficient offensively and rely on Gobert to battle on the offensive glass while the rest of the Jazz make transition defense their top priority.
4. In this series, Rudy Gobert ...
Pelton: ... will be somewhat mitigated by the Warriors' style of play. Because Golden State gets relatively little offense off drives to the basket, the Warriors had their shots blocked at the league's third-lowest rate during the regular season. (The Clippers, oddly, were lowest.) Gobert's presence will still have an impact in terms of freeing the Jazz's perimeter defenders to be more aggressive, but this isn't a series that's likely to be decided around the rim.
Engelmann: ... will have a tough time maximizing his impact as a shot-blocker. The Warriors run lots of pick and rolls with Zaza Pachulia as the screen-setter, so that'll draw Gobert away from the basket. Furthermore, the Warriors are elite at shooting 3s and midrange shots.
Doolittle: ... presents a challenge for the Warriors. While Golden State hasn't relied as heavily this season on Draymond Green-at-pivot lineups, it seems like a great option for this series in order to force Gobert away from the basket on defense. But he can do a lot of damage in the restricted area, both as a dunker and a rebound vacuum.
MacMahon: ... gets the chance to show the world what a dominant force he is. Gobert feels that he was an All-Star snub in part due to the Jazz's small-market status. He feels that Green has a huge advantage in Defensive Player of the Year voting because the Warriors are on national TV so much more often than the Jazz. This series gives Gobert, who believes he's the NBA's best big man, a worldwide platform.
Adams: ... will play a pivotal role in what's the closest thing the NBA has to an individual demolition derby. Although neither Gobert nor Green takes much pride in scoring, I could see them going at each other with the utmost intensity to simply prove the other isn't as good defensively.
We typically think of individual playoff duels as two scorers trading buckets, not two stoppers playing goalie and making energy plays. This has the potential for some incredible back-and-forth defensive possessions and I'm particularly intrigued to see what happens when Gobert is on the floor against the Warriors' small lineup.
5. Who wins the series, and in how many games?
MacMahon: Warriors in 5. The Jazz are a good team with a bright future. The Warriors are perhaps the best collection of basketball talent ever assembled.
Doolittle: Warriors in 5. The Jazz can grind out a win if they get a bad-shooting night from Golden State and dominate the glass. But teams have been trying to beat Golden State that way for years now, and the Warriors just have too much elite-level talent to be beaten by stylistic differences. If Utah, a deep team, had a decided bench advantage, I might give the Jazz a second game, but I don't see a huge advantage for them in this area, either.
Adams: Warriors in 4, and it has so much more to do with them than it does the Jazz. If Utah were playing the Rockets or Spurs, I'd predict a long series because the Jazz have enough really good, interchangeable pieces with decent size, defensive versatility and a style that's difficult to find a rhythm against. They absolutely have the talent to steal a game or potentially two, but Golden State is on a mission and appears to be rolling.
Engelmann: Warriors in 5. This year's version of the Warriors is even better than last year's, at least according to point differential. The key players are healthy and they made quick work of the Blazers, so I have little reason to believe the Jazz will stand much of a chance.
Pelton: Warriors in 5. Utah is talented and deep enough to make Golden State crack a sweat in this series, but the Warriors are the better defensive team (barely) and the better offensive team (by a wide margin) and that combination will prove difficult to overcome.