SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors find themselves as the butt of the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, needing two wins to make the actual playoffs. A loss this week pushes them closer to the inevitable end of their era.
That’s the anticlimactic conclusion to 82 games: the No. 10 seed. And their latest spin is they play well with their backs against the wall.
It’s true. The best players on this team have been through epic postseason triumphs, responding to several of the brinks to which they were pushed. Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Chris Paul, Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Looney — they have earned credibility in this situation.
Yet, after 82 games, it’s also clear the must-win boost is but the lone remaining hope to salvage this season. Though it’s built on their history of meeting moments, it’s also the last remaining juice with which to baste this jive turkey of a season.
This is where they are now.
“It just feels like we need to go win,” Green said Sunday after watching the Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 123-116, in a black sweatsuit and green cement Jordan 3s. “But it’s exciting. You know, it’s do or die. Probably feels more NCAA Tournament-ish. Kind of give you that feel. … We’ve just got to go win.”
Legacies built in June don’t feel right in March Madness.
It’s hard to find confidence they can pull this off, yet their doing so would make perfect sense. Welcome to the betwixt that is the Warriors. They always give you a reason to believe they can pull it off, tempered by evidence those days are over. They’re still good enough to beat almost any opponent, especially a flawed one. Simultaneously, they aren’t good enough to summon their best at will, and less often can overcome the opponent’s best.
The Warriors could lose to the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, and it would be an outcome absent of novelty. If they bowed out of this season so unceremoniously, swathed in mediocrity right along with the Chicago Bulls or Atlanta Hawks, it would be unworthy of their resume but certainly befitting of this particular campaign. Of course, they could also boat race the Kings, outclassing their younger bros up north as they did last postseason, all in the name of nostalgia.
You just can’t know with this team.
But what we do know, what the exhaustive NBA season tends to clarify, is they end this season farther from their goal than when it started. The only way to shift that reality now is to make the playoff run worthy of their conviction.
A year ago, when the then-defending champion Warriors finished as a No. 6 seed and had to go to Sacramento for games 1 and 7, that was considered a down season. And when the Warriors were finally ousted in the second round, it was abnormal to go home in May after six straight NBA Finals trips in years when Curry, Green and Thompson were healthy.
“It’s different, but something you must embrace,” Thompson said. “We’ve got a shot at it. It’s all you can ask for. We put ourselves in position to have success on the road. We’ve been playing very well on the road, especially as of late. It’s different, obviously, than it was in 2022. But whatever. It’s still basketball. We have a lot of experience to lean on.”
The pervasive theme then, echoed in the halls of Crypto.com Arena after their Game 6 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in last season’s playoffs, was how they’d maximized their roster — a dual message of how close they were, ending among the four best in the West, and how they needed more to get there.
They came into this season feeling like they added what they needed. They traded for Paul; drafted two productive rookies, Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis; and cleared rotation space for budding star Jonathan Kuminga.
Plus, Curry played 74 games, his most since 2016-17. Thompson played 77 games, the most since he returned from back-to-back season-ending injuries. Wiggins played 71 games after just 37 last…
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