The players showered, dressed and boarded the bus to the airport with stunning precision after a 106-91 loss, eager to get home and regroup for a couple of days before returning to the AT&T Center for Wednesday’s Game 2.

Obviously, their absence of effective timing and movement against the Spurs was not a continuing problem throughout the day.

On the court, the Jazz simply could not keep up with San Antonio’s crisp offense, which features clever passing and inside-out scoring that’s reminiscent of the Jazz of old. Turnovers and the inability to generate any kind of a run also doomed the Jazz to a standard-issue Game 1 defeat on the road, naturally raising questions about their chances of staging much resistance in this series.

“Believe it or not,” said Jazz center Al Jefferson, “we do walk out with our heads up a little bit.”

via Kurt Kragthorpe of The Salt Lake Tribune