How They Got Here

• Golden State: The Warriors entered the postseason as championship favorites and did nothing in the first round to dissuade anyone from continuing to believe they should hold that status. They dismantled the eighth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers in a professional, to-the-point sweep that never felt especially likely to finish in more than four games. Only Game 3 was decided by single digits, and Games 2 and 4 were blowouts of more than 20 points.

At the same time, the Warriors encountered adversity that would have sunk most sub-elite squads. Kevin Durant missed two games with a left calf strain. Key reserve Shaun Livingston only played in Game 1 due to a right hand injury. Backup wing Matt Barnes sat out the whole series with a right ankle issue. Head coach Steve Kerr was forced off the bench for the final two games with a mysterious illness that was termed as such because doctors legitimately didn’t understand it, not because the team was being coy.

Kerr’s condition is the only one that seems likely to affect the Warriors deep into the playoffs — not that any injury to Durant is great news — but three injuries to rotation players is usually a problem in a playoff series. The fact that the Warriors dominated anyway, without anyone playing especially above expectations, is scary.

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The matchup with Utah will test Golden State well beyond what they experienced in the first round, but this team is where it wants to be heading into the conference semifinals. They’ve already dealt with adversity, saw Durant come back in fine form for their Game 4 close-out, and can use Kerr’s status as a rallying cry whether he comes back to the bench or not. The Warriors know better than anyone that their status is precarious, but right now every other contender looks inferior.

• Utah: If the Warriors dealt with their first-round adversity by being good enough to transcend it, then the Jazz handled theirs by staring it right in the face.

Utah’s first-round series with the Los Angeles Clippers started about as poorly as any could — star center and Defensive Player of the Year candidate Rudy Gobert went down with a left knee injury 17 seconds into Game 1 and didn’t play at all in the next two. Remarkably, the Jazz won that first road contest without him, although they then dropped the next two by a total of just 13 points. Gobert looked solid when he returned for the must-win Game 4, but the story of that series-shifting victory was the crunch-time play of Joe Johnson, who scored or assisted on 22 points in the final seven minutes to help overcome the limited availability of a food-poisoned Gordon Hayward.

With Blake Griffin ruled out for the playoffs after Game 3 due to a right toe injury, the Jazz looked in solid position to win the series. Hayward returned with 27 points in 41 minutes in a pivotal Game 5 win at Staples Center, and the Jazz looked all but assured of closing things out at home in Game 6.

Things didn’t go as planned. The Clippers finally got the scoring balance they had previously lacked and barely avoided a late collapse to force a decisive Game 7. Yet, Utah turned things around to control that game and come away with a comfortable series-clinching win on Sunday. Gobert was limited to just 13 minutes due to foul trouble, but reserve Derrick Favors filled in admirably as seven players finished in double figures.

It’s possible to read Utah’s spot in the second round as both lucky and the result of their own resourcefulness and quality. They were obviously fortunate to not have to face Griffin for the bulk of the series, and the Clippers’ inability to adjust to their own misfortune is at this point a hallmark of the Doc Rivers era. Yet the Jazz encountered plenty of bad breaks and advanced primarily due to their superior balance and ability to respond to their own mistakes, especially in winning Game 7 after failing to close things out at home. Simply put, any team that wins three road games in a playoff series deserves to be where they are.

Head-to-Head

Golden State won two of three in the season series, and the only loss came after the No. 1 seed was already clinched. Nevertheless, Utah has reason to think it can frustrate the two-time defending West champs throughout the series.

If the Jazz are going to do it, though, they’ll have to avoid stretches like the 29-1 run from the opening quarter of the season’s first matchup on December 8 at Utah’s Vivint Smart Home Arena. The Warriors led 35-17 and looked on their way to a blowout win before the hosts mounted a second-half comeback to lose by a respectable 106-99 score. Stephen Curry scored 14 of his game-high 26 points in that aforementioned run, and Durant added 21 points and 11 rebounds. The Jazz got nothing from Hayward, Favors, George Hill and Rodney Hood, all of whom missed the game with injury. Perhaps they found themselves in that early hole because Dante Exum and Shelvin Mack were their starting guards.

The second game was a lopsided 104-74 Warriors win on December 20. Curry and Durant both scored more than 20 points again, but the story of the blowout was Utah’s poor 35.5 percent shooting from the field and 23 turnovers. Hill and Favors missed that contest, as well, and it’s probably worth noting that it’s hard to beat Golden State without a healthy point guard.

The third and final matchup came nearly four months later, on the regular season’s final Monday. Utah won 105-99, but it’s necessary to give a whole bunch of excuses for Golden State, who had already clinched the NBA’s best record, decided to rest Klay Thompson, and were tied heading into the fourth quarter before sitting all non-Durant starters for the period. Even then, Durant topped all Warriors with 33 minutes.

On the other hand, the Jazz can take heart in knowing that they were without the injured Hayward, Favors, Hood, and Raul Neto. (Hill played only 19 minutes, as well, and finished with 20 points regardless.) Plus, any victory at Oracle Arena is a good one, especially when it ends a 14-game Warriors winning streak.

So why can the Jazz hold out hope that they can compete in this series, even when every indicator from these three games says they’re serious underdogs? The reasons are clear enough — they were missing key players in each game, got close in the first and won the last anyway, and have generally given the Warriors problems over the last few years.

Most crucially, though, Golden State has never figured out a way to deal with Gobert. The Stifle Tower grabbed at least 17 rebounds in each of their matchups this season and has the potential to dominate the interior throughout the series. If you’re going to beat the Warriors, relying on an elite rebounder is the best place to start.

Likely Starting Lineups

The Warriors will start Curry, Thompson, Durant, Draymond Green, and Zaza Pachulia. The first four are All-NBA talents whose gifts are well established. Curry is a two-time MVP whose offensive prowess goes well beyond his all-time great shooting. Thompson is the second-best shooter in the NBA and a capable defender. Durant is one of the two or three best players of his era and a surefire Hall of Famer, and Green is a hyper-versatile forward who could well win his first Defensive Player of the Year award in June.

Pachulia will start, but the extent of his role usually depends on matchups. He’s a good screener and solid rebounder, but he’s a non-threat offensively and could allow Gobert to excel as a shot-blocking roamer. If he doesn’t play much, then the Warriors could opt to rely on JaVale McGee, a career-long laughingstock who terrorized the Blazers in the first round to complete his season-long transformation into a functional rotation player. Unfortunately, he’s also responsible for plenty of defensive lapses and often struggles against teams with superior execution. If he’s no good for this series, then veteran David West should see plenty of time as a jump shooter and rebounder. Or the Warriors could concede that they’re not going to beat Gobert at his own game and go small with Green as a center.

In that plan, Andre Iguodala becomes Golden State’s fifth big-minute player. He’s the rare sixth man who can be a game-changer without scoring, and the Warriors never really feel fully themselves when Iguodala isn’t serving as a secondary facilitator and all-world versatile defender. Other reserve guards and wings include Livingston, rookie Patrick McCaw, and scorer Ian Clark. All will be part of the rotation, and all are capable of scoring in double figures to supplement the Warriors’ All-NBA foursome.

The Jazz starting lineup is likely to include Hill at point guard, Hayward and Joe Ingles on the wings, Boris Diaw at power forward, and Gobert at center. However, Diaw averaged only 18.3 minutes per game in the Clippers series and is better thought of as a secondary member of the rotation. He has caused problems for the Warriors before as a member of the Spurs, though, so he could be a more essential part of this series.

The others should see significant minutes no matter what. The Jazz acquired Hill last summer so that he could run the offense, make big shots, and defend a star in a series like this one. Hayward made his first All-Star Game this season and will earn a new max contract this summer no matter how he plays in this series. Ingles is fresh off a dominant defensive showing against J.J. Redick and should see considerable time guarding the Warriors’ offensive weapons. Gobert is Green’s top competition for Defensive Player of the Year and Utah’s best chance at earning an upset.

Yet the Jazz’s strength in this series could come from their bench. Veteran scorer Johnson was terrific against the Clippers and controlled crunch time in several games by taking smaller defenders into the paint. Hood is another capable reserve scorer, and Favors is capable of providing a double-double and maintaining Utah’s interior advantage with Gobert on the bench. All three players will see significant minutes and could end up serving as some of Utah’s most important players in any given game.

Key Matchups

• Gobert vs. the Warriors frontcourt. The Jazz have no chance in this series if Gobert does not dominate the paint. The Warriors only have one readily exploitable weakness — their rebounding. (Rim protection was thought to be one at the start of the season, but they went on to lead the NBA in blocks by nearly one per game.) A team that likes to go small can be beaten on the boards, and the Jazz finished third in rebounding rate this season. Gobert is their leader in that area, and he has the potential to put up massive rebounding stats in every game of the series.

Gobert improved as an offensive player this season, too, and it’s not clear that the Warriors have a decent matchup for him. It’s not out of the question that he will post 20 and 15 (or better) averages, allow Utah’s wing defenders to press up on Golden State’s shooters, and render many of their best lineups inert.

The Warriors can try to pull Gobert away from the rim by going small, but that plan has plenty of drawbacks against a team that just used its excellent size to defeat the Clippers. The NBA’s best team is obviously a very different challenge, but the raw material is there for the Jazz to push the Warriors out of their comfort zone.

• Pace. The difference in these teams’ preferred styles could not be starker — the Warriors played the NBA’s fourth-fastest pace and the Jazz played the league’s slowest. Somewhat surprisingly, the Jazz have managed to win this battle for several seasons now. Golden State has topped 110 points just once in seven matchups over the past two seasons, and the vast majority of their wins have been slogs.

On the other hand, they’re 6-1 in those games, which suggests that they’re able to play at a slower pace without sacrificing too much. However, the Warriors are used to winning with quick-fire runs, and any team that manages to slow them down has a foundation to build on in a best-of-seven. At the very least, the Jazz know where to start — grind the Warriors up and hope whatever gets spit out isn’t good enough to win four times.

• Who, if anyone, guards Kevin Durant? This series could be the one in which the summer acquisition of Durant makes its first major impact of the playoffs. The Warriors have always been difficult to defend in the Kerr era, but KD threatens to make every potential solution inadequate.

The Jazz suffocated the Clippers’ wing scorers with the length of Ingles, Hayward, and others — well, OK, here’s the lengthiest elite perimeter scorer the league has ever seen. Focus too much on Durant, and you’re likely to let Thompson get near every shot he wants. Spend too much time on the wings, and you could allow Curry to face Hill with too little help. Rely too much on Gobert as a last resort, and you risk foul trouble.

Even if the Jazz figure out all these issues, Durant is the kind of player who can simply take the ball and go get points by himself. That’s why the Warriors chased him last summer. He looked surplus to requirements in his limited action against the Blazers, but this is the series in which he could prove his value.

• Kerr’s status and in-game adjustments. Kerr and the Warriors have indicated that they will not allow questions about his availability to drag on too deep into the playoffs. Such statements suggest that a decision will come before Game 1, but it’s possible that questions will drag on for a few games. The Warriors are too good and experienced to allow that uncertainty to become too much of a distraction, but the Kerr issue will remain in people’s minds until it’s solved.

If he’s not on the bench for games, then the Warriors could have different worries. Kerr is considered an elite coach more for his long-term strategy and man management than for his in-game adjustments, but the team is still used to his in-game style and manner of doing things. For that matter, Jazz boss Quin Snyder is a master of making minute changes to his team’s approach and is considered one of the league’s best young(ish) minds.

If Kerr doesn’t coach, will Mike Brown be able to fill in at a championship level? Brown has plenty of playoff experience and did well in his two games against the Blazers, but that was a series in which the Warriors had little to worry about. The Jazz are severe underdogs, but they have tactical advantages that will require the Warriors to adjust. This series will be a test of the coaching staff, and by its end we should have a good sense of this group’s preparedness for the rounds to come.

How the Warriors Can Win

It’s entirely possible that the Jazz could do everything right — slow the pace down, have Gobert dominate the interior, guard the backcourt effectively, etc. — and still win no more than one game. The Warriors are that good, that talent-rich, that seasoned.

Still, they’ll need to have a few things go right. Curry will have to win the matchup with Hill and avoid careless turnovers. Thompson will probably need a few super-hot stretches in which he exploits his status as the league’s best third option. Green will have to hold his own with Gobert when the Warriors go small. At least one of the centers will need to provide quality minutes.

But not all those advantages have to occur at the same time. More than anything, that margin of error is what makes the Warriors so tough to beat.

How the Jazz Can Win

Forget winning — the Jazz won’t compete in this series if they don’t control tempo and see Gobert dominate the interior. Those are prerequisites for winning the series, not potential areas in which they can defy expectations.

Otherwise, they’re going to need Hill to play Curry to something like a standstill, find a way to defend both Durant and Thompson at the same time, and force the Warriors into at least one major adjustment by Game 2 or 3. That’s a lot to do, particularly for a team that just slugged out a seven-game series win in the midst of serious adversity. But no one said beating Golden State is easy.

Best Reason to Watch

Cavs aside, the Warriors’ best series of the last few seasons have involved underdogs who used size advantages to push the favorites to the brink. In 2015, the Memphis Grizzlies took a 2-1 lead in the conference semis thanks to tough defense and superior execution in their halfcourt offense. Last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder forced the Warriors to win three straight elimination games with a mix of peerless defensive length and athleticism.

The Jazz have the potential to make the Warriors uncomfortable in similar ways. Whether they’re still truly vulnerable with Durant in the starting lineup remains to be seen, but the potential for a tough series exists. Either way, we should find out what these Warriors are made of.

Prediction: Warriors in 6.

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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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