Warriors focus on push for playoffs
3 big questions face team down stretch
With six games left in the regular season, the focus for the Warriors is on maximizing this final playoff push.
As the schedule winds down, the range of possibilities shrinks. At the start of the Warriors’ final trip of the season, the sixth seed was in play. Two wins and two losses later, avoiding the play-in tournament is no longer realistic and Golden State is positioned to earn the No. 8 seed as it closes out the season with a six-game homestand.
Here are some of the biggest questions facing the Warriors with less than two weeks to go.
Will they sign another player?
When it’s all said and done, ending the trip with Tuesday’s loss in New Orleans could prove painful. In each of its last four road
games, Golden State faced a team with a sub-.500 record. Going 3-1 or even 4-0 was a possibility. Instead, disappointing losses against the Timberwolves and Pelicans bookended a 2-2 stretch.
“All four games were very winnable but winning on the road is hard,” Juan Toscano-Anderson said after Tuesday’s loss. “We split. I wouldn’t say it was a bad road trip, but I don’t think it was what we expected, what we wanted to come out and do.”
After the game, coaches and players pointed to fatigue as the reason for the loss. Despite having just eight players on the second night of a back-to-back, the Warriors led with 2½ minutes to go in the fourth quarter. But the Pelicans closed with a 27-10 run and Stephen Curry’s potential go-ahead 3-pointer clanked off the front of the rim.
“I thought we were tired,” coach Steve Kerr said.
Would another body have helped? By electing not to sign Gary Payton II for the remainder of the season last week, the Warriors decided to leave open two roster spots in order to trim pay- roll. But Payton — who Kerr has praised for being capable of changing the flow of the game with his defense — would have had value, especially as someone to limit Lonzo Ball, whose 33 points (including seven 3s) were key for New Orleans.
Injuries have hampered Golden State the last few weeks: James Wiseman is out for the season after meniscus surgery, Kelly Oubre Jr.’s wrist is likely to keep him out the rest of the season, and Eric Paschall has missed 17 straight games with a hip injury. Plus, Damion Lee has missed nearly two weeks with an extended stay in the league’s health and safety protocols. Paschall and Lee could return as soon as tonight against the Thunder.
But with each game being so important in a packed Western Conference race, could the Warriors opt to bring in reinforcement for this final push?
“We’ll see,” Kerr said. “I’ll talk to (general manager) Bob (Myers) about that.”
One of those open spots is likely earmarked for Toscano-Anderson, currently playing on a two-way contract. But that doesn’t help the Warriors’ shortage of players. Payton is still a free agent. Another center could be useful.
Either way, Golden State must sign a player by May 13 to be in accordance with the league’s 14-player minimum. There will still be two games left at that point — against the Pelicans and Grizzlies — but that’s a week and four games from now.
Are the savings over that span really worth it to owner Joe Lacob if it means risking another bad loss, or can the folks on the basketball side make the case to make a move sooner?
Where will they end up in the play-in tournament?
Given that the Warriors have a three-game lead over the 11th-place Pelicans, it would take a catastrophic collapse to fall out of the top 10. The Ringer gives Golden State (33-33) a 98% chance of staying in the play-in tournament.
The big question is whether the Warriors will play in the 7-8 game or end up in the 9-10 matchup. The winner of the 7-8 game advances to the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, while the loser plays the winner of the 9-10 game to determine the final playoff spot in each conference.
The motivation to stay in the top eight is clear: Two opportunities to win one game and advance to the playoffs.
It may be too late to catch the seventh-place Trail Blazers, who are 3½ games ahead in the standings. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies (32-32) linger in ninth place. Right now, the Warriors have the advantage in the standings because of a better conference record, but the teams have split their season series thus far and the season finale (May 16) will determine who gets the tiebreaker.
That game may end up carrying huge playoff implications — exactly what the NBA hoped when it scheduled the second half of the season. To get there, the Grizzlies will play the league’s third-easiest remaining schedule. With games against Minnesota, Detroit, Toronto, New Orleans, Dallas and Sacramento (twice), it’s possible Memphis could go 5-2 or 6-1 before the showdown at Chase Center.
To be safe, the Warriors would need to win four of their next five games against Oklahoma City (twice), Utah, Phoenix and New Orleans. That means taking care of business against the Thunder and Pelicans and an upset over either the Jazz or Suns, who are tied for the league’s best record.
Where will the Minnesota pick end up?
Golden State won’t just be watching its own place in the standings. Because it owns the Timberwolves’ top-three protected pick, the Warriors will be very interested to see where Minnesota ends up. After spending most of the season with the league’s worst record, Minnesota has won four of its past five games and has risen to the league’s third-worst record.
Since the odds for a topthree pick are the same for the teams with the three worst records, that still gives the Timberwolves a 40% chance of keeping their pick in 2021 and a 60% chance of it converting to Golden State. But instead of that pick guaranteed to land in the top five, the odds are spread out and include picks 4-7.
But a few more wins would dramatically alter the Timberwolves’ draft lottery odds. At 20-45, the Timberwolves are one win behind the Thunder, Cavaliers and Magic. It’s possible that they could end up going from the No. 1 spot in the lottery to the No. 6 spot by the end of the season. In fact, considering that the Thunder, Cavaliers and Magic have three of the toughest remaining schedules and that the Timberwolves have one of the easiest, it seems likely.
So what if that were the case? On one hand, it might not be bad. That would result in only a 29.5% chance of the Timberwolves keeping their pick (versus 40%) and a 70.5% chance of the Warriors selecting in the top 10. On the other hand, there’s a clear top five in this draft and the overwhelming odds are that the pick would fall between 6-8.
That would mean that even if the Warriors did get the pick, they likely would not have a shot at Cade Cunningham, Evan Mobley, Jalen Suggs, Jalen Green or Jonathan Kuminga.
Instead, they’d be looking at the next tier of prospects that includes Tennessee’s Keon Johnson, Baylor’s Davion Mitchell and Florida State’s Scottie Barnes, among others.