First Look At The Warriors' Playoff Landscape

After a dominant February from the Warriors, all eyes are looking ahead to the spring: It’s time for the playoff push.

To say the margin for error in the Western Conference this year is thin, would be underselling it. After last night’s games, the gap between the 1st seed and the 10th seed is just under a 10-game margin, with plenty of potential shifting to come over the next few weeks. Today’s game against the Celtics was a resounding reminder of that, as the gap between the Warriors in the 9th seed and the Lakers just a game back was narrowed to a tie in the standings.

For the Warriors in specific, however, the goal isn’t to just hold onto the 9th spot, but to escape the play-in tournament. A top 4 seed is not entirely out of the question, but it would take an impressive last-minute collapse from one of the juggernauts at the top of the West (with the most likely candidate being the Clippers) to make that happen. If Golden State is in contention for the 6th seed, a spot they’re currently 3 games out from, then they have the ability to get into the 5th seed since it’s only another half game away.

There’s a multitude of scenarios which could make this happen, but there’s also plenty of possibility across the board for the deck to be shuffled when it comes to seeding that aren’t directly impacted by how the Dubs finish off the season: The top three teams in the conference are all within a half-game of each other, and the difference between the 4th-seeded Clippers and 10th-seeded Lakers is only 7.5 games when there’s plenty more for each team to play over the next two months.

Here, we’ll answer some of the important questions about what the Warriors’ path back to the Finals could look like if they keep up the strong play they’ve recently had.

Where They Want to Get to
If this perspective was from January alone, a 7th or 8th seed would be the pick here. However, strong execution coupled with a favorable schedule, an unprecedented road winning streak, and some serious firepower from their best player could land the Warriors with a top-4 seed - if they win out.

The ideal spot is of course to overtake the Clippers for the 4th seed, but LA owns their season tiebreaker so unless they skid through this last stretch, it’s looking highly unlikely that they relinquish homecourt. The Warriors also do not own the tiebreaker for the 6th-seeded Phoenix Suns, who had a good home winning streak bunked by the Houston Rockets last night. A 6th seed is likely the best-case scenario for the Warriors, but it requires the Suns to overtake an interesting opponent who Golden State is currently 1-1 against this season: The New Orleans Pelicans. The Warriors will have 2 more games against the Pels before the conclusion of the regular season, and that season series could be the determining factor between a legit playoff spot and a play-in spot.

For all intents and purposes, the Warriors want the 6th seed at the very least - while their first-round opponent would be the defending champion Denver Nuggets, there’s still time for the owner of the 3rd seed to change.

What Needs to Happen
Besides New Orleans and Phoenix, the other two opponents standing between them and the 6th seed are the Dallas Mavericks and the Sacramento Kings. The Kings split their season series against the Warriors at 2-2, meaning their shared Pacific Division record would have to be better to keep the tiebreaker like it currently is. Since they’re up 2-0 on the Lakers and have split 2-2 against the Suns, the Kings would need to lose their last game against the Clippers as well as the rest of their games against the Lakers to move to conference record as the tiebreaker, which has yet to be determined of course.

The Mavericks are a different story. They play the Warriors three more times this season and are only 1.5 games ahead while having some notable struggles regardless of Luka Doncic’s MVP-caliber stats lately. If Golden State can overtake the head-to-head record, then they’d have a legit shot of at least making it to the more favorable bracket of play-in spots, where they could secure the 7th seed or get two chances to stay alive.

To get to the 6th seed, the Warriors would need to keep to their winning ways (outside today’s debacle in Boston), which would include three wins over Dallas, while the Kings lose out in the rest of their divisionals and conference matches at the same time that the Suns start to fall apart. If that sounds like a difficult endeavor, that’s because it is: The Warriors don’t necessarily control their own fate anymore with the amount of tight spacing within the Western Conference.

Who’s The Ideal Opponent?
There’s no guarantee that they’d be able to get away from the play-in and into the playoffs, but it’d be important to consider who the Warriors could possibly play against in the first round regardless. As of now, we’d be in for the 5th round of Lakers-Warriors, a season series which has delivered in full so far, for the honor of playing the loser between the 7th and 8th seeds. Assuming the standings remain as they are and the Warriors manage to grab the 8th seed via the play-in, their reward would be to play the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Warriors have yet to find an answer for star OKC guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and have given up some scorching shooting splits against that team in almost every matchup they’ve played in this season. It would be a wildly-entertaining series, and the hope would be that experience would win out in a tougher playoff environment, where a player like SGA isn’t able to get to the free throw line as easily.

An alternative is, if they can sneak into the 7th/8th spot and win the first matchup, they’d meet up against the 2nd-seeded Wolves, who represent a stalwart defense that has a cog in the middle the Warriors have exposed over and over again: Rudy Gobert.

Minnesota’s length and depth are concerns for the smaller Warriors, but they’re a young team with little experience much like OKC, and experience is something the Dubs do not lack. On top of that, their offensive production is inconsistent outside of Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns: The Wolves are a defense-first team, so putting their ability to produce on the other end is in the Warriors’ best interest.

The one team in the top three that they definitely don’t want to see (and nobody else should want to either) is the Denver Nuggets. The defending champs have given the Warriors plenty of issues en route to a perfect season sweep, and they’ve looked unbeatable as of recent. For all intents and purposes, a matchup against the Nuggets almost guarantees a first round exit.

Closing Thoughts
As mentioned before, there’s still plenty of else to worry about before talking about the playoffs. Golden State has made the Lakers look beatable this season, and they lack answers for a lot what the Warriors can throw at them: If the shots go in, LA’s drop-heavy defensive scheme could make it a quick one. The Mavericks are cohesive but heliocentric in ways that can’t really expose the Warriors’ size issues since they’re so perimeter-oriented, meaning Gary Payton II and Andrew Wiggins can be effectively deployed at the point of attack. The Kings outpaced the Warriors plenty with their speed on the fast break, but on both sides of the ball Golden State has improved a lot when it comes to pace.

Each of the teams in the play-in is beatable for them, and for the most part that’s true of the wider playoff field. These are all teams the Warriors have held big leads again, and if they can figure out their issues when it comes to closing the door at the end, there’s no reason to believe this team can’t make a run. If the inability to close is still a problem, however, then it’ll be another season of underachieving, and a serious look in the mirror will be needed as the clock continues to tick on Stephen Curry’s prime.

(Photo credit: Noah Graham / Getty Images)