The Jazz finally did away with the Golden State Warriors, only after being tied midway through the fourth quarter, missing all kinds of free throws, kicking the ball all over the court and refusing to take control of the game until the last minute Tuesday night at EnergySolutions Arena.
Other than that, it was a very convincing performance.
The Jazz's 100-87 victory was nothing that would necessarily inspire much confidence about advancing through the Western Conference finals.
But you had better believe it was good enough.
I know this: During the last 20 seconds, when Golden State coach Don Nelson was making the long walk of concession toward the Jazz bench, nobody in the building was concerned about style. Only substance.
The Jazz have that, in abundance.
They held the explosive Warriors scoreless in the last 3:30. Think about that: It was a one-point contest, in what really seemed more like a deciding game than a Game 5, and Golden State simply could not make a basket against the Jazz.
After all the three-pointers, all the dunks, all the pyrotechnics, all the mix-and-match lineups, all the talk about how they were revolutionizing pro basketball, the Golden State Warriors could not score when it counted.
Jerry Sloan's defense beat Nellieball.
It all may have felt more like a case of survival than achievement, but that was impressive in its own way. The Warriors will be kicking themselves all summer for not extending this series when the Jazz were giving them every opportunity, but that's their own fault.
The Jazz would have walked away with the same feelings, heading back to Oakland for Game 6. Instead? They did more than enough down the stretch on a night when guard Deron Williams struggled like crazy, the Jazz had 25 turnovers (again) and the Warriors just would not go away until the very end.
Derek Fisher saved the Jazz. Without his three three-pointers, they may never have done anything offensively in the fourth quarter.
Andrei Kirilenko saved the Jazz. His two free throws with 2:35 left came after they had gone more than three minutes without scoring, and besides scoring 21 points, he also made several hustle plays that broke up fast breaks and kept rebounds alive.
The Warriors saved the Jazz. The truth about basketball is winning usually takes some cooperation from the other guys. The visitors pledged not to rely so much on three-point shooting, and then they did just that in the second half, going 3-for-17.
Yet the amazing, frustrating, agonizing thing about it all was the Jazz almost turned down the favor. The words on the video screen just before tipoff nearly became haunting: "Western Conference finals in our grasp . . . It's ours for the taking."
Sure was, all night. How many times were you thinking, well, they've got it now? It did not happen at the end of the third quarter, when the Warriors were self-destructing, or even early in the fourth period when Fisher was knocking down threes.
But it did happen, eventually. The words of Fisher, the playoff veteran, were prophetic: "Teams don't go quietly."
The Warriors went flagrantly, noisily and obnoxiously. But they went. And the Jazz are moving on. Really, that's the whole story.
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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.
