The Golden State Warriors fell to the Dallas Mavericks 109-99 on Wednesday, no surprise considering Draymond Green joined Stephen Curry on the proverbial sidelines shortly before tipoff due to back soreness.
The depleted Dubs kept the game close for three quarters, their dogged defense forcing Luka Doncic into an off shooting night while Jonathan Kuminga tried his damndest to keep his team afloat offensively. Dallas pulled away early in the fourth quarter, though, Golden State struggling to score as the home team went up double-digits with Doncic watching from the bench.
Effort and engagement certainly wasn't the Warriors' problem in Dallas. But moral victories—even missing Curry and Green, by far their team's two most impactful players—don't exist for squads with postseason aspirations in mid-March, and a third loss in four games will make it even more difficult for Golden State to climb up the play-in tournament ladder, let alone step off it altogether.
After the game, though, Steve Kerr expressed optimism about the Warriors' late-season trajectory.
“You can’t worry about it. We look at ‘em every day, obviously, but there’s nothing we can do about that,” he said of Golden State's place in the standings. “The season, it really is a marathon. At any point in the season you rattle off 10 wins in a row, then that matters. Whether it’s in the beginning or in the end, that doesn’t matter. I still have no doubt that this team can get on a great run and make a good push.”
Warriors' loss to Mavs litters path to better seed
The loss moves Golden State to 34-31, a game back of the Los Angeles Lakers for ninth in the Western Conference. The Dubs are three-and-a-half games behind eighth-place Dallas and four behind the Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns, effectively tied at sixth.
The Warriors have two more direct chances to close that gap on the Mavs, meeting Doncic, Kyrie Irving and company twice in the first week of April. But even if they take both those games to even the season series with Dallas at 2-2, they'll still be highly unlikely to win the tie-breaker over Jason Kidd's team due to conference record. Phoenix has already clinched the tiebreaker over Golden State by taking head-to-head matchups 3-1, while the Kings—who split four games with their I-80 rivals this season—seem bound to own the tiebreaker over Golden State due to division record.
The Dubs' best hope of avoiding finishing ninth or tenth in the West, needing just one win to advance past the play-in tournament instead of two? Simply surpass Sacramento, Phoenix, Dallas and Los Angeles in the standings, an extremely tall order considering they're currently four games back of sixth-place with just 17 left to play.
The silver lining is that both Curry and Green could be available for Saturday's marquee matchup with the Lakers, Golden State's latest ‘biggest game of the season' in a stretch run poised to be full of them. Perhaps a primetime road win over LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Los Angeles will get the Warriors the momentum back they've lost since Curry tweaked his ankle during crunch-time of last week's disappointing home loss to the Chicago Bulls.
“A little bit, for sure,” Kerr said when asked if Golden State's previously palpable momentum had stalled. “The record shows that, but I still like who our team is. We’re hoping to get Steph back for Saturday. I like the team a lot better now than I did a couple months ago where we were really sorting through a lot of things. I think we have an identity, I think we know who we are. I think we’ll bounce back here, and I’m excited about the last part of the season.”
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