Game lost — as is ground in bid to keep draft pick

The Warriors’ chances of keeping their 2012 lottery pick took a huge hit Tuesday night, and it happened more than 700 miles away from their 83-81 loss to New Orleans at Oracle Arena.

If the Warriors have a topseven pick after next month’s lottery, they keep it. If they’re eighth or worse, they convey the choice to Utah.

Utah might have been more willing to deal the pick back to the Warriors if the Jazz had their own draft choice — but Utah lost its pick Tuesday by clinching a playoff berth with a victory over Phoenix in Salt Lake City.

The Warriors (23-42) could have locked up at least a tie for the sixth-worst record by losing 23 of their final 27 games, but they won Sunday in Minnesota and needed some terrible late-game play to lose to New Orleans on Tuesday.

The Warriors have the eighth-worst record, and they could drop into a tie for seventh with the winner of Thursday’s New Jersey-toronto game. The Warriors will have to lose to San Antonio on Thursday, when the Spurs aren’t expected to use their top players because they’ve clinched the Western Conference’s top playoff seed.

The difference in odds for remaining among the top seven picks and keeping their firstrounder are 75 percent if they finish in a tie for seventh place and 10 percent if they finish eighth-worst.

The Warriors got 16 points from Klay Thompson, 15 from Brandon Rush, 13 from Jeremy Tyler and 10 points and 10 assists from Charles Jenkins. Thewarriors managed to fall apart late.

They had an 81-76 lead with 1:47 remaining, but New Orleans (21-44) scored the game’s final seven points. The game was tied 81-81 when Chris Wright grabbed his second offensive rebound of the possession with 24 seconds left.

Instead of taking the final shot that either won the game or sent it into overtime, Jenkins drove into the lane with 5.9 seconds left. His layup attempt was blocked by Gustavo Ayon.

The rebound was retrieved by Greivis Vasquez, who got the ball ahead for a Marco Belinelli layup that was goaltended by Wright with 0.7 of a second left. Jenkins’ last-second lob to Wright went off the top of the backboard.