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Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry celebrates scoring a three point shot during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo\/Tyler Tate) | AP <\/p>\nPoor defense has been the theme of this season for the Utah Jazz, and in a 140-124 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, the team\u2019s defensive issues were once again exposed.<\/p>\n
Steph Curry scored a game-high 27 points to lead Golden State, which shot 53% from the field and 43% from 3-point range, to its 27th victory of the season. The loss was the fourth straight defeat for the Jazz, who dropped to 15-33 on the year.<\/p>\n
Wednesday night\u2019s loss was the ninth time this season the Jazz\u2019s porous defense allowed 140 or more points. Utah has the worst defense in the NBA, allowing 127.5 points per game.<\/p>\n
On the second night of a back-to-back with everyone except forward Kevin Love available, Utah was consistently too slow in responding to Golden State\u2019s offensive actions, resulting in a multitude of open looks for a Warriors team that doesn\u2019t miss many of those.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were steps behind on every action tonight defensively. Their cutting had us spinning like a top the entire game and it resulted in a lot of catch-and-shoot 3s,\u201d Jazz coach Will Hardy said. <\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to Golden State, they played with a ton of energy and force. We looked slow, sloppy, run-down. That\u2019s how you get a result like that. So we got to get our energy back, be ready to go Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moses Moody scored 26 points to add to Curry\u2019s game-high performance, and six other Warriors turned in double-digit scoring nights in Golden State\u2019s dominant victory.<\/p>\n
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry celebrates scoring a three point shot during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo\/Tyler Tate) | AP <\/p>\n
Golden State\u2019s excellent cutting ability and constant off-ball movement make them tough to defend. The Jazz don\u2019t have the defensive personnel this season to match up favorably against talented offenses, and that showed once again on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Time and time again, the Jazz allowed the Warriors to get easy looks.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir cutting actions happen with the ball in a variety of places. It\u2019s not just top of the key. It\u2019s not just post. They do some posts, some elbow, some top of the key, sometimes on the wing. They find different places to make the ball static and they cut,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of different situations. They require communication. Sometimes it\u2019s two people involved, sometimes it\u2019s three.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curry\u2019s off-ball movement is up there with the all-time greats, and he displayed that in his 27-point performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe threat of Steph Curry is something that we all react to. Steph is the greatest shooter of all time, also a pretty outstanding cutter \u2026 He finds his way to the basket cutting for layups and just draws so much attention that a lot of times he\u2019s taking two people with him,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey do a great job as a group of making quick decisions once they create the rotations defensively. And it\u2019s just a little bit different because it\u2019s not dribble-drive that\u2019s creating the rotations \u2014 it\u2019s a lot of cutting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardy wanted to see his group be more physical with the Warriors in off-ball situations and make their offensive sets tougher to execute. He didn\u2019t see that from his team in yet another loss that left a lot to be desired on the defensive end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t do a good job of keeping our body between them and the basket. And we weren\u2019t physical enough to try to slow them up and so they had us in rotations, not really because of drives, but because of cuts,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n
The Jazz made a run to close the third quarter, trimming a 99-82 deficit to 101-93, but a quick 6-0 Warriors spurt to open the fourth quarter held the Jazz from truly getting back into the game.<\/p>\n
One bright spot offensively for the Jazz in the loss was Brice Sensabaugh, who turned in 22 points to lead Utah in scoring.<\/p>\n
The 22-point outing was the seventh time this month that the third-year player has scored 20 or more points.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously a great, gifted scorer. He can do his thing and I think we\u2019ve been trying to just kind of make the defense (have to) to load up to him with his scoring ability. So he\u2019s been getting better with making plays off the dribble and reading the weak-side defense,\u201d said Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen, who scored 18 points.<\/p>\n
Hardy highlighted Sensabaugh\u2019s progress in getting more 3-pointers off, and that showed on Wednesday as he made four of nine shots from deep.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting his feet set, especially in the pocket against the switch, he\u2019s done a really good job of that. Then when he does draw matchups that are favorable and he catches the ball on the run and transition or late in the clock, he\u2019s been able to create some midrange opportunities,\u201d Hardy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the work he\u2019s done on his body shows when he makes plays around the rim. He\u2019s elevating well and finishing well. He\u2019s got a wide array of skills on offense that continue to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next up, the Jazz wrap up their six-game home stand on Friday against the Brooklyn Nets before hitting the road for five straight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poor defense has been the theme of this season for the Utah Jazz, and in a 140-124 loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,6,1111,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-568105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-goldenstate","12":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-news-feed-local","15":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115977349714126722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}