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Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry celebrates after scoring during the second half of an NBA play-in tournament basketball game against the against the Los Angeles Clippers Wednesday in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill)<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(AP) \u2014 The Golden State Warriors spent the last month resigned to their fates. Even before they were locked into the play-in tournament, they knew they were headed there and would have to win two games to grab an unlikely playoff spot.
\nSo, they prepared for a two-game season.
\nAnd the mission, in their eyes, is only half-finished.
\nThe Warriors \u2014 along with Charlotte, Orlando and Phoenix \u2014 will be in win-or-go-home matchups Friday as the play-in tournament comes to a close and sees two teams grab the last two available spots on the playoff bracket.
\nCharlotte goes to Orlando, Golden State to Phoenix. Game 1s \u2014 at Detroit in the East, at Oklahoma City in the West \u2014 await Friday night\u2019s winners.
\n\u201cThis is literally it,\u201d Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. \u201cThis is it.\u201d
\nGolden State used a 41-23 run over the final 9:49 to close a comeback road win over the Los Angeles Clippers, turning a 13-point deficit into a 126-121 win and keeping its season alive. The Warriors hit six more 3-pointers than the Clippers did in that deciding stretch, and those 18 points were exactly the difference over the game-ending run.
\n\u201cThat was fun,\u201d Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. \u201cThat\u2019s what you live for, right there.\u201d
\nCharlotte \u2014 with a victory over Miami, one where LaMelo Ball\u2019s uncalled flagrant foul of Bam Adebayo commanded almost all the attention \u2014 won its way into Friday, as did the Warriors. The Magic lost in Philadelphia, giving the 76ers the No. 7 seed in the East and a matchup with Boston. And Phoenix lost at home to Portland, giving the Trail Blazers the No. 7 seed in the West and a matchup with San Antonio.
\nSeasons are on the line now. Miami and the Clippers have already lost elimination games, and two more teams will join them in offseason mode on Friday night.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be ready,\u201d Magic forward Paolo Banchero said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to be ready.\u201d
\nPlay-in past performances
\nThis season\u2019s play-in tournament marks Phoenix\u2019s first time in the event. The other three remaining teams have all been there at least once before.
\nGolden State is in for the fourth time, Charlotte for the third time and Orlando for a second time. (Philadelphia and Portland, who have already advanced, were in the play-in for a second time in their histories.)
\nGolden State is 2-3 in play-in games. Orlando is 1-1, Charlotte is 1-2 and Phoenix is 0-1.
\nCharlotte at Orlando, Friday, 7:30 p.m. (Prime Video)
\nSeason series: Charlotte, 3-1.
\nBetting line: Charlotte by 3.5.
\nAt stake: The winner moves on to play No. 1 Detroit in the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, starting Sunday. The loser is out of the playoffs.
\nOutlook: There\u2019s a lot to unpack here. LaMelo Ball is coming off a game where he made the winning shot, took out Bam Adebayo and was told a day later by the league that he should have been ejected from the contest. Orlando lost the last three meetings between the teams by a combined 61 points and has been, to put it kindly, erratic all season. Charlotte won the first two games in Orlando this season; no team has gone 3-0 or better on the road against the Magic \u2014 excluding the bubble year \u2014 in a season since Detroit in 2006-07. Charlotte\u2019s Miles Bridges has played in more regular-season games (501) than any other active player with no playoff appearances. He could end that streak on Friday.
\nGolden State at Phoenix, Friday, 10 p.m. (Prime Video)
\nSeason series: Golden State, 3-1.
\nBetting line: Phoenix by 2.5.
\nAt stake: The winner moves on to play No. 1 Oklahoma City in the Western Conference quarterfinals, starting Sunday. The loser is out of the playoffs.
\nOutlook: Golden State won the first meeting by 11, a game where Phoenix got down by 25 but had the ball with a chance to make it a two-possession game with three minutes left. The other games were decided by one, three and four points. The Warriors are coming in with a nothing-to-lose vibe and with good reason; they were injury-plagued all year, finished 37-45 and made clear for the last month that they were just getting ready for an inevitable play-in tournament run. Phoenix blew away most preseason expectations by winning 45 games \u2014 but now need to beat the game\u2019s best shooter ever in Stephen Curry to avoid becoming the first team to go 0-2 at home in a play-in tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry celebrates after scoring during the second half of an NBA play-in tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,88842,6,4943,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-712268","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-last-2-nba-playoff-spots-up-for-grabs","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-uncategorized","16":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116418959412192974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712268","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=712268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}