Lackluster Warriors facing challenge to reach finals
Team tabbed as preseason favorite to return to finals has had lackluster regular season
The Golden State Warriors have been in a holding pattern for seven months. Since the start of training camp, the Warriors — winners of two of the past three NBA titles, including a 16-1 romp through the postseason a year ago — have been the overwhelming favorite to win a third in four years this season.
The only problem? They had to endure the combined seven months of preseason and regular season basketball that precedes the playoffs to do so. The result was the most indifferent 58-win season in the history of the sport that, combined with a series of injuries, including to star guard Stephen Curry, has cast some doubt as to whether the Warriors are the favorites to repeat anymore.
That’s why the start of the playoffs arrives here Saturday against the San Antonio Spurs with a sense of relief among the Warriors.
“It’s been a long haul, for sure,” coach Steve Kerr said. “I was hoping we’d be heading into the playoffs healthy. Obviously everybody wants that. But because we weren’t able to, the last few weeks have been made more difficult.”
Just how good a shape the Warriors are in has become a prominent subject of debate over the past few weeks. Remarkably, after the Cleveland Cavaliers led the league in dysfunction all season, it is Golden State — and not Cleveland —
that feels like the more likely upset victim of the two teams to prevent a fourth straight showdown in June’s Finals.
Part of that is because of the presence of the Houston Rockets, who led the
NBA with 65 wins and have the presumptive league MVP this year in James Harden. But part of it, too, is because of the way Golden State is limping into the playoffs.
The Warriors have gone just 7-10 over their final 17 games — more losses than they had in their entire record-setting regular season two years ago.
Much of that is due to injuries. Golden State’s plan all season was to get to the All-Star break healthy, ramp up over the
final two months of the regular season and be feeling good heading into the playoffs.
The first part of that plan worked out relatively well — only for Golden State to suffer a litany of injuries over the past two months. Curry, who played in just 51 games this season because of a combination of ankle and knee injuries, will miss the first round with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, with his return likely to come early in the second round. The Warriors spent several games over the past month playing without all four of their stars — Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
There also hasn’t been the same level of desire on the team that existed the past few years.
Three years ago, Golden State burst onto the scene for the first time. Two years ago, the Warriors were motivated by skeptics who said their first title was a fluke. Last year brought the arrival of Durant, and new dynamics that needed to be sorted out.
This year brought none of those things — and the Warriors have looked stale.
Cleveland, on the other hand, has been anything but stale, changing over much of its roster throughout the season. But the Cavaliers have looked better since the deadline day trades that shipped out Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder and brought back Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance, Jr., George Hill and Rodney Hood.
With injuries sabotaging the Boston Celtics, Cleveland’s ongoing domination of the Toronto Raptors and the Philadelphia 76ers’ inexperience, Cleveland enters the postseason as the favorite to make it out of the East for a fourth straight year. That would make eight straight trips to the NBA Finals for LeBron James.
As the postseason begins, though, there is more doubt about the Warriors and Cavaliers meeting at the end of it than at any point over the past four years. Whether that is just wishful thinking from those hoping for something new, or a new reality remains to be seen.