Over the past few seasons, the Golden State Warriors finishing the regular season on top of Western Conference standings has been one of the surest things in the league. That does not seem to be the case this year, though, with the Houston Rockets on pace to unseat the Warriors as the conference’s regular season champs.
Golden State supporters would argue that there is a lot of basketball left to play and that it’s premature to declare James Harden and company as the eventual No. 1 seed in the West once the playoffs roll around. For Warriors forward Draymond Green, however, the Rockets have the top seed in the bag unless Houston suffers some misfortune down the stretch, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
Draymond Green: "We are almost locked into the 2-seed, barring Houston has a collapse, which I don't see happening." pic.twitter.com/1BZuLlY1BV
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) March 20, 2018
At present, the Warriors (53-14) are 3.5 games behind of Houston (56-14) for leadership in the West. Golden State failed to narrow that gap Monday, when they suffered an 89-75 home loss at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs.
After zooming out of the All-Star break with seven consecutive wins, the Warriors have gone 2-4, no thanks to injuries to their top players; Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Klay Thompson have all missed time in the second half of the season. Draymond Green is also in danger of getting sidelined after sustaining a pelvic contusion in the Spurs game.
As for the Rockets, they have lost just once over their first 13 games after the break. They have rarely lost. In fact, Houston is 27-3 in its last 30 games with six of its next 12 opponents being teams that are currently outside of the playoff picture. The Warriors, on the other hand, only have four such opponents in their next 11 outings.
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