The Golden State Warriors would’ve controlled their own postseason seeding destiny with a win over the Nikola Jokic-less Denver Nuggets on Sunday. Klay Thompson’s clean look at a game-winning triple with a few seconds remaining clanked off the back of the rim, though, then Jamal Murray blocked his last-gasp attempt to follow his own miss.
After a rough performance Steve Kerr called “mindless” and left Steph Curry sending his team an introspective warning, the Dubs are 41-38, back at sixth-place in the Western Conference.
Let's dive into three reactions from the Dubs' hard-fought, last-second loss in Denver.
(via @armstrongwinter)https://t.co/4ZXRy1vADl
— Warriors Nation (@WarriorNationCP) April 3, 2023
Still, just because Golden State needs help from two of the LA Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans over the season’s final week to avoid the play-in tournament doesn’t mean the defending champs doomed their hopes of an ideal path in the playoffs. Here’s what the Warriors’ best-case postseason seeding and matchup scenario looks like entering the last three games of the regular season.
Warriors finish sixth, meet Kings in first round for Northern California clash
There's still a world in which Golden State finishes fourth in the West, getting home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs. Dominant as they've been at Chase Center and bad as they've been on the road, the Dubs won't be measuring their postseason success by advancing to the Western Conference Semifinals.
Matchups matter most for the Warriors with a top-two seed unachievable, which is why they'd be best off finishing the season in sixth–not only likely avoiding Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns, but getting a potential matchup with the upstart Sacramento Kings in round one.
Mike Brown's team is no paper tiger.
The Kings' 120.0 non-garbage time offensive rating isn't just best in the league, per Cleaning the Glass, but 1.4 points better than the second-ranked Denver Nuggets'—about the same difference between No. 2 and No. 7. Sacramento is already pushing back on the notion intensity and physicality of postseason basketball is bound to slow its vaunted transition attack, too.
But experience looms extra large in the postseason, and in stark contrast to Golden State's, the Kings' core just doesn't have it. Don't overlook the pressure DeAaron Fox, Damontas Sabonis and company will feel hosting games at Golden 1 Center. Sacramento's been starved for the playoffs since the mid-200s.
Just because they finally ended basketball's longest postseason drought doesn't mean the Kings, or their fans, will be content merely getting there. There are real expectations in California's capital city, and rightfully so in a wide-open Western Conference.
But the biggest reason Golden State wouldn't mind drawing Sacramento in the first round is what Steph Curry and company could do to Brown's defense.
The Kings rank 25th with a 117.2 defensive rating, an easy high among prospective playoff teams. They're even worse relative to the rest of the league in the halfcourt, where Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole routinely stretch Sabonis past his limits in pick-and-rolls, dribble hand-offs and off-ball screens. Sacramento doesn't have a perimeter stopper beyond backup guard Davion Mitchell, either.
If both Golden State and Sacramento rack up points at will in a long-anticipated I-80 matchup, which team are you most confident can string together timely stops? The answer is obvious, as is the age-old question of what side has the best player in a potential seven-game series.
There's also no guarantee Fox's season-long crunch-time heroics extend to the postseason. Clutch play is always subject to wild single-game swings, especially when success is mostly predicated on mid-range jump-shooting, the area Fox took his biggest leap in 2022-23.
Yet more reason Golden State's ideal path is as a six seed? The likelihood of meeting the rival Memphis Grizzlies in the second round instead of the Denver Nuggets. Quietly solid as the once-reeling Grizzlies have been of late, there's no doubt the Warriors would rather see them in round two than Jokic and the Nuggets at altitude.
Follow Us
Subscribe