“It’s like ‘The Sopranos.’ It’s over. Find a new show.”
— Kemo, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We should bury the Golden State Warriors, right?
They are barely in the playoffs as we speak, holding on to the 10th and final spot in the West with their incisors and toenails. They are old and brittle, an afterthought in a conference with a dreadnought playing for the Denver Nuggets, a likely MVP finalist shining nightly with the Oklahoma City Thunder (if said dreadnought doesn’t win the award himself) and a highlight factory playing with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The West is loaded with assorted Lukas and Zions and Kawhis, all healthy and dealing as the regular season nears its end. The Phoenix Suns lurk. The precocious Houston Rockets’ habits are starting to catch up to their talent.
Meanwhile, Draymond Green’s now getting tossed less than four minutes into games.
All dynasties, from Ming to Westwood, ultimately end. Age, weighted expectations, jealousies and hunger conspire against anyone staying on top forever in their chosen profession. And here we find the Dubs, with Stephen Curry’s minutes running into the red, Klay Thompson bouncing between Old Klay and … Klay’s Old, Jonathan Kuminga dealing with tendinitis, Chris Paul just now back from another injury, and Andrew Wiggins just starting to look like the Wiggins who was the difference-maker for Golden State during its last run to its last title in 2022. Kevon Looney now comes off the bench in favor of rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis. There’s no good reason to think they have much magic left, at least not this season.
They’re toast.
Except … 21-15.
That’s Golden State’s record on the road this season, supplemented Friday with a workmanlike win over the Charlotte Hornets. Charlotte isn’t good, obviously. But the Hornets were putting up good defensive numbers right around the All-Star break. Friday, though, the Dubs sliced them up like an Easter roast lamb. I lost track of all the back cuts and dunker spot layups and lob dunks — except for the sick left-handed one Jackson-Davis tossed down from CP3.
They’ve won at Oklahoma City, at New Orleans, at Sacramento. They’ve won in Philly and New York and Orlando. (They’ve also lost at Denver and Minnesota and Dallas. I know.)
“Our road performances have kept us alive,” Curry said after Friday’s 115-97 win.
And the Warriors have always, always won on the road in the postseason — 28 straight series, basically the entirety of the Curry-Thompson-Green era, in which Golden State took at least one road game, before they failed to do so last year in their second-round loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Winning on the road plays in the postseason. So if there is anything on which the Warriors can still hang fleeting hopes of a playoff run this year, it’s their disposition away from Chase Center, where they’re just 18-19 this season.
“It’s bizarre,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Friday.
“A year ago, it was the complete opposite. We were 33-8 at home and 0-41 on the road or so. So, who knows? It’s hard to explain these things. The main thing is we’re playing well right now. We’re in a pretty good groove. Wiggs, this is the best Wiggs has been all year. Trayce is coming into his own. Gary Payton (II) looks fantastic. We’re coming along well. And obviously, we’re in a fight with a lot of teams. The West is just loaded this year. A year ago, we probably had a similar record — I think we ended up (44-38) — and we were the six seed. This year, we could end up with a better record and be the 10th seed.”
And this isn’t a small sample anymore. The Warriors have played .667 basketball for 30 games (20-10). Since Feb. 1, the Dubs have been in the top 10 in a lot of meaningful categories. During this stretch, Golden…
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