Everything always seems predictable after it happens, right? Yet coming into Friday's contest, there was this unavoidable feeling that things would turn around - temporarily, anyway - as the Jazz and Golden State Warriors moved their series to Oracle Arena.

Sure enough, it all came crashing down for the Jazz. Their apparent strategy was to get their worst possible performance out of the way, as not even Tatum Fisher's aura could permanently extend their hope-filled playoff rise.

The family of guard Derek Fisher, whose infant daughter who underwent successful treatment for cancer the day of the memorable, emotional Game 2 of this series, watched as Fisher and backcourt mate Deron Williams were benched with first-half fouls and the Jazz soon crumbled.

All those folks who could not stand the tension and heartstopping drama of the first two games of the Western Conference semifinals would undoubtedly like to thank the Jazz for helping them avoid any of those emotional swings Friday, when the Warriors cruised to a 125-105 victory - after leading by 30 points.

It all added up to a jolt of reality for the Jazz and their followers, a reminder of two things that may have been forgotten after two games at EnergySolutions Arena: This is still going to be a long, tough series and the Jazz are very fortunate to own a 2-1 lead, as well as the Warriors have played.

Afterward, the Jazz entered a healthy state of denial, falling back on the old defense of blaming the other guys. "They just played well," said forward Matt Harpring.

"They made us turn the ball over," said coach Jerry Sloan.

Certainly, it was asking a lot of the Jazz to sustain their recent level of play. If a downturn was inevitable, is was still painful to watch.

"I don't necessarily think it was about an emotional letdown," Fisher said, crediting his former Golden State teammates.

That's probably true, because there was a stretch of the first quarter when the Jazz seemingly had absorbed Golden State's best stuff, and another fight to the finish like Games 1 and 2 was in the making.

Uh, maybe not.

Even with Williams and Fisher on the bench and the injured Dee Brown unavailable as the Warriors jetted to a 24-9 lead, the Jazz recovered. Andrei Kirilenko was playing well as the fill-in ballhandler and Gordan Giricek and Mehmet Okur were making shots.

This concludes the Jazz's Game 3 highlights.

Everything changed with this sequence of events, lasting 3.1 seconds in a tie game: Kirilenko traveled, then the Warriors' Jason Richardson took an in-bounds pass and drilled a three-pointer for a 30-27 lead. It was over, right then and there.

If the Jazz were resilient in the first quarter, they proceeded to try on all kinds of unfavorable labels in the second quarter: sloppy, hesitant, defenseless and unaware.

Their initial shooting success made them forget all about Carlos Boozer inside, which led to problems.

This was a two-team collaborative effort that, come Sunday, will test one of the NBA's traditional theories: One playoff game does not carry over to the next.

The way they played Friday, the Jazz obviously hope so.