Gosh, doesn\u2019t November just hit rather different? The parties are over, the Halloween glow is gone, and the last warm breath of late-summer California finally lets go. The air is sharp and the sun is long gone. You step outside and realize damn, this is the month that actually gets cold. Get ready to hear \u201cwe need the rain\u201d from some absent minded Bay Area resident when you\u2019re standing on the BART platform in a monsoon.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s Warriors basketball right now in a nutshell. It feels like it\u2019s sometimes beautiful, like the leaves changing in slow motion, reminding you why you fell in love with this team in the first place. And sometimes it\u2019s cruel, hitting you in the chest and taking your breath away the moment you let your guard down in thinking they wouldn\u2019t have a dumbfounding turnover. But even in the cold, even with the rain coming sideways, you gotta keep on going.<\/p>\n
I believe these Dubs are truly the worldbeaters we saw in San Antonio on back-to-back nights in one of the most bizarre scheduling quirks Dub Nation had seen recently. They stunned the great young Victor Wembanyama\u2019s jolly band of ballers twice in a row, pumping the brakes on their early season hype train. I also wholeheartedly believe these Warriors are the ones who stumbled to the Indiana Pacers, who hadn\u2019t won a game all season until that cold November night in the midwest. On any given night, it\u2019s up to them on who imposes their will.<\/p>\n
We all knew before the season that this schedule was going to be a real grinder during fall\/winter.<\/p>\n
With that said, these Dubs are hitting December currently in third place in the Pacific at 11-10, five games behind the Lakers. Maybe that gap feels wider than it should this early, especially when you consider Golden State entered November with championship expectations and the Lakers were supposed to be in \u201cfigure it out\u201d mode themselves with LeBron James sidelined. Their chemistry fueled by the chilling theatrics of Luka Doncic and the swag of Austin Reaves is turning them into something of a hot commodity, especially with King James back in the lineup.<\/p>\n
Phoenix sitting behind them at 12-9 gives an early indicator that the Dubs won\u2019t be able to pencil in wins in their division.<\/p>\n
Of course the division standings matter less than the conference positioning, and that\u2019s where the real eyebrow raising lives. Sitting 8th in the West at 11-10 means the Warriors are currently in the play-in conversation, not the home-court advantage discussion. They\u2019re 9 games back of Oklahoma City, who are doing this whole 20-1 start to the season. Cute. Wake me up when they get 74 wins. And yes I\u2019m a little concerned about the Warriors facing them on Tuesday after the defending champions layed the smackdown on Golden State, especially if Stephen Curry is still compromised with his leg injury.<\/p>\n
The Warriors are finding themselves in the bottom area of the playoff pack to finish November, but there\u2019s not the sense of despair one might be witnessing in say, either Sacramento (5-16 on the season) or with the Los Angeles Clippers (a 5-15 start).<\/p>\n
Well damn. Let me know if we can not worry about The Beard and The Klaw for this season, that\u2019d be a great sigh of relief for Dub Nation as that team can really be tough when they\u2019re on.<\/p>\n
In the long march that is the NBA\u2019s fall to spring regular season schedule, you can\u2019t overreact to anything. You just gotta realize November\u2019s over, and remember every lesson it gave you in every warm up of coffee on a wet, chilly morning.<\/p>\n
After all, we need the rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gosh, doesn\u2019t November just hit rather different? The parties are over, the Halloween glow is gone, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,6,255,38987],"class_list":{"0":"post-445923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-golden-state","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-goldenstate","12":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-warriors","15":"tag-warriors-features"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115643402475216709","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}