the NBA play-in tournament<\/a>:<\/p>\nMarch 25 vs. Brooklyn Nets<\/p>\n
The Nets are embracing their ride to the May 10 NBA Draft Lottery. They\u2019ve lost eight straight games and 18 of their last 20. Long eliminated from the Eastern Conference play-in tournament race, Brooklyn is playing not to win but to assess their current roster and improve its chances in the lottery.<\/p>\n
Count this as a W for Golden State.<\/p>\n
March 27 vs. Washington Wizards<\/p>\n
Brooklyn looks forward to the lottery, but the Wizards are obsessed with it. Since winning their first two games out of the NBA All-Star break, they have lost 16 in a row. Their best player, Anthony Davis, is out for the season. Their No. 2, Trae Young, has appeared in five games since the calendar flipped to 2026, and there is no date for his return.<\/p>\n
Golden State rises to two games under .500 with a W.<\/p>\n
March 29 at Denver Nuggets<\/p>\n
Hoo boy. Steph or no Steph, prevailing in Ball Arena will be a gargantuan task for the Warriors. The Nuggets are fighting to stay among the top four in the West, assuring homecourt advantage in the first round. As good as they are, losing at Memphis last week proves they are fallible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This smells like an L<\/p>\n
April 1 vs. San Antonio Spurs<\/p>\n
This follows two off days and is the first of five consecutive games at Chase Center. Then, too, the Warriors dropped the Spurs twice in in San Antonio. That was in November, long before the Flying Wembanyamas shifted into overdrive. The Spurs are 22-2 since January.<\/p>\n
Smells like another L.<\/p>\n
April 2 vs. Cleveland Cavaliers<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers are a quality team that, on paper, should be elite. Something is missing, though, and acquiring James Harden never seems to fill any team\u2019s missing element. Since winning the first two games after the All-Star break, the Cavs are 8-6. They\u2019re beatable.<\/p>\n
If Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is and Curry are healthy and play this side of the back-to-back set, there is a path to a W.<\/p>\n
April 5 vs. Houston Rockets<\/p>\n
Though some consider the Rockets underachievers, it\u2019s apparent they\u2019re missing an important ingredient to success. They have no effective point guard. They look good getting off the bus, but their disorganized offense leads to more turnovers than, drum roll, the Warriors.<\/p>\n
Houston can be had, and the Warriors need this W.<\/p>\n
April 7 vs. Sacramento Kings<\/p>\n
The Kings have been able to sneak in the occasional victory, but they haven\u2019t taken down a winning team since Jan. 14. Their injury reports are longer than those of the Warriors, so instead of sprinting toward the lottery, they\u2019re plodding along.<\/p>\n
This is a Golden State W.<\/p>\n
April 9 vs. Los Angeles Lakers<\/p>\n
The third-place Lakers are eight games behind the second-place Spurs, so they\u2019re not climbing higher than third. But they\u2019re only two games up on the Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves, so this game likely will matter as much to LA as it does to Golden State.<\/p>\n
This looks like an L for the Warriors, who have beaten the Lakers only twice since April 2024.<\/p>\n
April 10 at Sacramento Kings<\/p>\n
See above. Kings fans, frustrated with the franchise\u2019s affinity for jogging backward, might be throwing wooden beams at their team by then. Neither DeMarcus Cousins nor De\u2019Aaron Fox will be walking onto the Golden 1 court.<\/p>\n
If this isn\u2019t a W for the Warriors, they should forfeit the next game.<\/p>\n
April 12 at Los Angeles Clippers<\/p>\n
There is a reasonable chance that play-in tournament seeding will be at stake, which is not necessarily good for the Warriors. When these teams met last season with such stakes, the Clippers rolled into Chase and won in OT. The Warriors have lost nine of the last 10 against LA.<\/p>\n
This smells like an L, if only because ownership of this series has passed from the Warriors to the Clips.<\/p>\n
If the Warriors go 6-4 over the final 10, as projected here, they likely stay in 10th place. Losing the play-in opener would end their season. Winning it would mean a second victory is needed to reach the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Odds are long that an elderly team without rest will succeed in the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tough to see the Warriors even reaching the playoffs unless they win the games within their reach and pull off a couple upsets between now and April 13.<\/p>\n
Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For nearly two months the Warriors have been hugging their cramped seats and glancing toward the heavens, pleading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,871,6,932,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-678334","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-kristaps-porzingis","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-steph-curry","16":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116290317862870687","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678334","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=678334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}