My advice: Get used to it.
There will be six more games just like this one.
Not exact reproductions of the Jazz's 116-112 victory, maybe, but close enough.
By the end of this little competition called the Western Conference semifinals, somebody will be left standing, but barely so.
Judging by Game 1, this thing will come complete with staggering statistics, wild sequences, scoring in bunches and all kinds of drama.
Monday's quick summary: With 17 seconds left in a tie game, Jazz forward Carlos Boozer grabs his 20th rebound of the game - his 10th offensively - and flips home the winning shot. After the Warriors' Stephen Jackson misses a three-point attempt, the Jazz's Matt Harpring fights ferociously for the rebound and is fouled, then makes two clinching free throws.
That's the kind of clutch stuff that winning any game in this series will require, for either side.
When this one was done, Jazz point guard Deron Williams had scored 31 points and Harpring and Mehmet Okur added 21 each, overcoming the 20-plus-point efforts of four Warriors - including point guard Baron Davis' 24.
"I knew Baron was going to be aggressive toward me," Williams said, "so I had to be aggressive back."
That's precisely what this series will be like.
Maybe the Jazz will subsequently try to slow things down somewhat, but playing this fast is irresistible, almost liberating, after the grind-it-out series with Houston.
Not that things will become much easier, but Game 1 may have been the most challenging contest the Jazz will play in EnergySolutions Arena during this series. They had a quick turnaround from the epic series with the Rockets that lasted seven games and 15 days, and they were missing veteran guard Derek Fisher, excused to deal with a child's health issues.
It meant the Jazz would need every contribution they could get, and rookie guard Dee Brown delivered. If this series is just like old times for Jerry Sloan of the Jazz and Don Nelson of the Warriors, who were coaching these teams in a playoff series won by the Warriors in a sweep 18 years ago, it was a flashback to more recent days for Brown and Williams.
The ex-Illinois teammates, two years removed from the Final Four, were on the floor together at times and Brown spelled Williams in the middle of the fourth quarter when the starter went to the bench with his fifth foul. Surely, that would be the point when the Jazz finally wore down, having battled from behind for most of the second half.
Instead, Brown scored on two driving layups that tied the game, and then things became really tense. Just as they did in the last two games against the Rockets, the Jazz came through in the end.
There were some shaky moments, like the time in the last minute when Williams missed a driving shot, chased his rebound into the left corner and saved the ball - right to Golden State's Jason Richardson, who drove, was fouled and tied the game with two free throws.
So the Jazz needed a big play. Would it be Okur, whose two three-pointers Saturday at Houston were so critical? No, it would be Boozer, whose two rebounds of Okur misses late in that game were every bit as important.
This time, Boozer grabbed the rebound of an Okur miss and applied the finishing touch himself. The Jazz still had to absorb Jackson's miss, with a good look from the left side, or the Warriors might have done what they did at Dallas in Game 1 after sneaking into the playoffs as the West's No. 8 seed.
Everybody in the building could exhale, but only until Wednesday night.
There's more where all of his came from, I'm telling you: six more games, nearly two more weeks of fights to the finish.
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* KURT KRAGTHORPE can be reached at kkragthorpe@sltrib.com. To write a letter about this or any sports topic, send an e-mail to sportseditor@sltrib.com.
