OAKLAND — The NBA's version of Cinderella is still breathing — but she's on life support.

That's because she folded down the stretch on Sunday night at Oracle Arena, getting outscored 29-14 in the final 6:15.

The No. 8-seeded Golden State Warriors — a team that barely qualified for the playoffs — became the talk of the NBA by taking out the league's best regular-season team, the Dallas Mavericks in the opening round of the playoffs.

But after losing to the Utah Jazz 115-101 on Sunday night at Oracle Arena — their first playoff loss of the season at home — the Warriors find themselves down three games to one in the best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals.

Golden State would now have to win three straight — including two in Salt Lake City — to keep their dream season alive.

"We just didn't have any energy," said Warriors swingman Jason Richardson, who finished with just seven points before being ejected from the game in the final seconds after a flagrant foul. "We just didn't have it tonight for some reason."

Warriors point guard Baron Davis, who had one of the best games of his career on Friday night in leading Golden State to a 20-point victory, was also off his game on Sunday. Davis finished with 15 points on just 6-for-16 shooting from the field and 2-of-8 shooting from 3-point range.

"I though that we just didn't attack the rim like we were supposed to tonight," said Davis. "I thought that after Game 3 — when we attacked the basket so well — that tonight we were going to come out and do the same thing."

The game was played much more to the Jazz's liking as far as pace is concerned as compared to Friday night's game — a fact not lost on the Warriors.

"Utah slowed the ball down," said Al Harrington, who had a team-high 24 points. "Every rebound they walked the ball up and did exactly what they wanted to do."

The Warriors shot the ball poorly — from both the field and the foul line. They made only 40 percent of their field goals, but even worse was their 62-percent free-throw shooting (21-of-34)

"There are a lot of different things that we could have done differently," said Harrington. "Free throws were one of those things, but we do need to focus on other aspects and play a better all-around game."

The Jazz will have their first of three possible chances to close out the Warriors' season on Tuesday night at EnergySolutions Arena. While NBA teams rarely come back from 3-1 deficits — it's only happened seven times in league history — the Warriors aren't about to throw in the towel just yet.

"They still have to beat us," said Davis. "It's not like we aren't going to show up Tuesday. We're going to come ready to play. We are confident we can get back in the series. We just have to get Game 5."

---

E-mail: lojo@desnews.com