Warriors blow out Jazz, get some good vibes back

LET RILEY G TALK TO YA!

As frustrating as the opening few weeks of the 2025-26 season have been for many members of Dub Nation, particularly the season-long losing streak that developed over the last 3 games, sometimes all it takes to feel a little better as a fan is to see your squad play a young team that isn’t very good.

And as much as losing trap games on the road against opponents missing their stars, wasting explosions from your own generational players or being walked down by the truly elite teams in your conference are all exasperating and sobering, those things are less important to the regular season destiny of an NBA team than whether or not you beat the teams you’re supposed to beat.

Conveniently enough, Monday evening in San Francisco provided the Warriors with a chance to handle their business against a young team and their supporters some potential relief from negative vibes, and for once the Dubs delivered.

The Warriors of recent vintage (basically since 20222) were decidedly awful at winning when they were expected to win, and it is what mired them in mediocracy until Jimmy Butler came along. Ironically, the day the Butler trade was consummated last season, the Warriors blew a lead in catastrophic fashion to the same feckless Jazz team they faced last night. This time however, Jimmy Butler was already wearing a Golden State Uniform (a gorgeous City Edition tribute to Oakland making its world premiere) and along with the Batman to his Robin (Stephen Curry) — as well as some badly-needed fireworks from Alfred (Buddy Hield) — he was able to lead the Warriors passed Utah in a comfortable win.

While the Warriors strength of schedule up until this point was actually right around league average, the heinous amount of back to backs and travel to start the season has finally relented. The first signal of this shift in the team’s fortunes was the presence of a tanking Jazz team who had played the night before in LA, and it was a welcome sight with Draymond Green, Al Horford and Jonathan Kuminga all sitting with different injuries. Given the absence of their 2 best defensive centers and most athletic player full stop, the biggest question heading into the game was how the defense would hold up. Early on it seemed like the Dubs might not be up to the task when Utah pulled out to an 11-0 lead to start the contest.

During that stretch, and reminiscence of most of the Warriors’ futility in advantageous situations this season, the offense was actually a bigger problem than the defense. Moses Moody managed to turn a wide open dunk attempt into a Steph Curry turnover by being afraid to even try the shot, typifying the skittishness and lack of athleticism that has plagued the team all season.

On the subject of Moody, since his career night against the lowly Pelicans, Moses’s shooting has come back down to earth in a dire way. He is 7 for 27 since that amazing night in New Orleans and he jacked up 12 attempts last night. The term “jacked up” is used with prejudice in this instance, because many of the looks lacked the rhythm that had proved so successful for Moody to start the year, and one even involved looking off a wide open Steph only to clank the 3. Moses took 3/4 warriors shots to start the night and missed all of them. He is still shooting 40% from 3 for the season, and his confidence is clearly intact which is vital, but the Warriors need to be elite at shooting to compensate for other offensive limitations, so any sag in Moses’ upward trajectory is noticeable and important.

In general, the Warriors ability to put the ball into the basket has reached DEFCON 1. Setting aside shooting metrics that speak to efficiency, Golden State’s plain old field goal percentage is 23rd in the league with offensive maestro’s Jimmy and Steph’s attempts included. Taking out the stars, the team’s FG% would rank 28th in a 30 team league. Obviously it is unfair to compare the Warriors’ role players to complete rosters elsewhere, but this feels indicative of how poorly the surrounding cast is shooting and how much the 1st and 2nd option are buttressing the offense just to reach below average. Considering that Jimmy and Steph generate excellent looks for their teammates, this speaks incredibly poorly of the rest of the roster’s ability to just make shots.

It’s a huge reason why Will Richard has earned a starting spot and continues to feel like a revelation. He might not shoot often, but when he does he’s making 55%, best on the team. He was demoted to the bench with the Jazz starting 4 players 6’7” and taller, but still managed to make heady plays like this perfectly timed cut:

With all that size on the other side Quinten Post was once again returned to the starting lineup and acquitted himself well. He was only 3/8 from the field, and missed 4/5 of his 3s, but the one deep shot he hit was an amazing no-dip look from the corner. He also continues to grow as a passer, including a nifty backdoor feed to Steph for the highlight of the night as well as multiple good reads in the short roll. It was one of a couple bank shots Steph hit in the game, and the eye test says he is showing off that dynamic more than he ever has before.

QP ended the night with a block, a steal, 4 rebounds and 5 assists and may prove to be the best solution to the starting lineup long term if he keep contributing in multiple facets of the game besides just spacing. The contrast between the offense that happened with Post and Trayce Jackson-Davis on the floor proves how much a lob threat unlocks the Warriors system, but Post is simply a more complete player at this point. The one thing the team needs to learn is that QP cannot handle low bounce passes. He doesn’t have bad hands but they put him in untenable situations every time they try to thread the needle to him in traffic.

Without Draymond’s playmaking and chemistry with Steph to rely on, Steve Kerr turned to Gary Payton II as the final starter and he responded by notching a “Draymond Green Memorial Triple-Single”. Draymond-focused snark aside, Payton was excellent and filled Dray’s role on offense seamlessly, racking up 8 assists. He drew on skills from his past life as point guard while still behaving as the smallest power forward in the league and finishing with force in PNRs. He’s probably a better finisher and therefore offensive threat than Draymond at this point.

Beyond their opening push and some nice 1st quarter play from Keyonte George, the Jazz generally looked incompetent and every bit of their now 5-12 record, with even Lauri Markkanen amongst others missing a handful of bunnies at the rim. After Jimmy Butler helped stabilize the Dubs and the offense following that 11-0 start, the Warriors dominated. They’d open the 2nd quarter with a 21 to 0 run to go into halftime up double digits, a fitting tribute to the olden days in Oakland, especially given their new court and jerseys.

The Jazz didn’t score for the first six minutes of the second period, and it was just as much good Warriors defense as terrible Jazz shooting and ball security. Between Lauri’s struggles and the supreme talent of Steph and Jimmy, even with all the Warriors’ aforementioned offensive deficiencies, these teams looked like they belong to 2 different leagues, one major and one minor. Steph flashed to an easy 31 point night, never looking like he was struggling too hard, and Jimmy controlled the game even without reaching 20 points.

The lone positive for Utah was their 5th overall pick Ace Bailey. Coming into the season there was some character concerns with Ace and his desire to play in Utah. He looked nothing like a malcontent, seamlessly fitting in around his teammates while standing out with an efficient 21 point. His game is extremely polished and subtly smooth, but he’s loudly athletic and supremely talented.

Despite Ace’s best efforts, the bottom line is that nobody on the Warriors hit 30 minutes on the night and it was a 24 point game when Steph checked out to signify the end of the competition and the start of garbage time. It was exactly the kind of get-right game the Warriors needed and they finally took full advantage of an opponent at a disadvantage.