Most teams in the NBA have about 20 games to go in the regular season, which means we’re unofficially entering the stretch run. This is the time of year where teams want to be healthy and playing their best basketball, or at least trending that way. Some teams are, like the inexplicably red-hot Hornets or the three teams currently at the top of the Western Conference — the Thunder, Spurs and Wolves.
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The Warriors are not in the discussion of teams peaking at the right time. In fact, they’re more like a boxer that has taken an inordinate amount of punches, but for some reason, refuses to fall to the canvas.
The bad news just keeps coming for Golden State. They lost Jimmy Butler to a torn ACL in January, and the long-awaited Jonathan Kuminga trade brought back Kristaps Porzingis, who has played only a handful of minutes in one game due to an ongoing mystery illness.
Steph Curry has been hampered by a bad knee and hasn’t played since January 30th, and five days ago, it was announced that he was 10 days away from being re-evaluated. Somehow, Steve Kerr’s team is hanging in there, and they got a huge overtime win on the road against the Rockets last night.
Things were looking bleak for them after two straight double-digit losses against the Lakers and Clippers earlier this week. But thanks to 49 combined points from Brandin Podziemski and DeAnthony Melton, plus a couple of timely missed free throws from their old buddy Kevin Durant, they were able to just barely escape with the dub.
After the game, ESPN’s Warriors beat reporter Anthony Slater relayed some encouraging news via Draymond Green, who said that he received a text from Steph earlier that day saying, “Keep going. I know it’s tough, but promise you, I’m coming back.”
Steph has been out for over a month, and with each passing day, especially as his timetable keeps getting extended, Warriors fans have been worrying more and more about his status. It doesn’t seem inconceivable that if Golden State continued to fall off without him, then he could just shut it down and regroup this offseason.
Last night’s win had a galvanizing effect on everyone, though, including Steph. Draymond said he received another text from his sharpshooting friend after the game with “A bunch of exclamation marks. ‘Y’all did that,'” Steph said.
The Warriors are now 32-30 on the season, and 5-7 since Steph last played. The win also kept them 1.5 games ahead of the Clippers for eighth in the West. There’s a long way to go, but if they could keep that spot, they’d only need to win one of two play-in games to make the playoffs.
If Steph can come back relatively soon, then they should at the very least be in the hunt for that spot. The good news for them is that even if they can’t stay in eighth, there’s really no danger of falling out of the play-in altogether, as the 10th-place Blazers are 2.5 games back, but the next-closest team after that, the Grizzlies, are 8.5 behind and clearly focused on the lottery.
The upcoming schedule is a clear mix of the haves and the have-nots. Games against the Thunder, Wolves and Knicks look like bad news, but if Golden State can just take care of business against the Jazz, Bulls and Wizards (none of whom seem interested in winning), they can make it through that stretch 3-3 and that much closer to Steph’s return with everything still to play for.
