Warriors Play-In Primer: Potential Matchups and Path to the Playoffs
After a tough loss last night against the Pelicans, it seems all but assured the Warriors will be locked into the 9th or 10th seed spot for their play-in matchup.
While there is still a chance they can take over the 8th seed with a win tomorrow against the Jazz, it’s contingent on both the Lakers losing (to the Pelicans, who are still fighting for the 6th seed after the Suns won last night as well) and the Kings (to the Trail Blazers, who have put together some surprisingly scrappy performances towards the end of the season, but are still not in a position to play for anything notable). The Warriors are no longer in control of their own destiny, which they would have been had they beaten New Orleans last night.
There’s a few pathways into the playoffs for the Warriors heading into the final day of games, so we’ll go over possible opponents and the potential first round matchups in the playoffs themselves (which are highly-dependent on a number of variables on their own after the Denver Nuggets were taken down by the San Antonio Spurs in a late comeback led by Victor Wembanyama). There’s a myriad of possibility, even with some routes likelier than others.
1) Potential 9th-10th Seed Matchups
While not ideal by any stretch, the 10th is starting to seem like the spot Golden State will end up in, resulting in their first play-in game being on the road. They’ll be heading up the road to Sacramento if standings currently hold - an arena that’s familiar territory from Stephen Curry’s monster Game 7 performance in the playoffs last season. The Dubs have been much better on the road this season anyway, strangely enough, and their season series against Sacramento ended in a 2-2 split, with the Kings owning the tiebreaker due to a better division record.
The Kings present a dynamic challenge with their combination of De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, but it isn’t something the Warriors haven’t seen (or properly gameplanned for) before: Once again, they’ll be able to take advantage of Sabonis’s lack of perimeter mobility and spacing on both ends, with the addition of Trayce Jackson-Davis to help clean the glass against his straight-line barreling into the paint being a net positive, especially with TJD’s recent play. Sacramento will also likely be without Malik Monk due to an MCL sprain, who has done some serious damage off the bench in each of their recent matchups.
The other potential first play-in opponent the Warriors could face is the Los Angeles Lakers. Golden State holds the tiebreaker after going 3-1 against LA this season, and Sacramento’s clean season sweep over them would mean that a Lakers loss tomorrow slides them into the 10th spot, and sends them to Chase Center as the visiting team. The Warriors have found some solid success against the Lakers this year, mostly by having fresh legs to exploit the Anthony Davis-led drop coverages which LA likes to roll out. The biggest challenge will be bottling up Anthony Davis while minimizing his impact defensively and especially in the paint: He’s easily LA’s most important player (even with LeBron James on the floor), so not letting him dictate the flow of the game will be crucial. Expect a lot of sets to get shooters open and to punish LA’s not-so-great 3-point defense - they close out haphazardly and opened the floodgates for the Warriors to get hot early en-route to a historic shooting night just a week ago.
2) Potential 7th-8th Seed Matchups
Depending on tomorrow’s outcomes, the Warriors could see either of the above teams in the second round of the play-in tournament if they win that first leg. The other two teams still jockeying for position (and battling for a clean route to the playoffs by way of the 6th seed) are the Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Pelicans, and even if the Warriors don’t miraculously take the 8th seed tomorrow, either of these teams could end up being a matchup for the second leg of the play-in if Golden State can get past the 9th-10th matchup.
The Suns have played the Warriors well this season, racking up a 3-1 record often accompanied by big games from center Jusuf Nurkic. Two of those wins, however, come with the asterisk that Draymond Green was either not playing or was thrown out for a Flagrant 2 that resulted in a suspension. Green’s presence glues the Warriors defense together, which will be key against Phoenix’s multiple star-level scorers, and he’s been a part of a lineup with TJD and Andrew Wiggins that’s boosted the Warriors defensive rating figures by a substantial amount. To say the prior matchups this season were flukey wouldn’t be giving the Suns the proper credit, but they’re certainly winnable.
The Pelicans have gotten hot at the right time, and they got a quality win on the second half of a Warriors back-to-back without one of their best players in Brandon Ingram on the floor. Ingram’s expected back tomorrow for their matchup with the Lakers, a game that could lead them to the 6th seed if they win, so his presence for the play-in is assured if that’s where they end up. The Pelicans have a dearth of quality wings that can play great connected defense while knocking down a high volume of shots from the outside, as well as a dominant force in Zion Williamson that will force the Warriors to pack the paint. It’ll be a physical contest against a younger team, but it’s certainly winnable so long as they don’t let the Pels have a 2nd quarter like they did last night.
3) Potential First-Round Playoff Matchups
We’re standing on the precipice of NBA history right now. There has never been a time since the merger that the battle for the 1-seed in any conference has come down to the final day of hoops with three teams still in the running for it. A late blown lead to the Spurs last night (which included an unfathomable 3-minute, 17-point stretch by Wemby) kept the Nuggets from locking up pole position, forcing them to play their guys against the Grizzlies tomorrow. Assuming the Warriors make it out of the play-in and into the 8th seed after two rounds of tournament hoops, whoever’s in 1st is who they’d end up seeing.
So if all three of Denver, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Minnesota Timberwolves win, the divisional tiebreaker kicks in and puts the Thunder as the top seed since they have the best aggregate record between the three teams, who all happen to share a division. That’s a very winnable matchup for the Warriors, given their team is the youngest in the league on average and they aren’t quite used to the physicality (and differing whistle) of the NBA Playoffs. All of the games between Golden State and OKC have come down to the wire this season, and it seems like the Warriors probably should have won all of them had it not been for self-inflicted, bone-headed mistakes. The Thunder are a lengthy, wing-heavy team that has the juice to run the floor: It’ll be key to run their shooters off the line and make it a bit of a slugfest, bogging down the pace defensively and creating open looks in the half-court to get Steph and Klay Thompson going early. This historically has been the bane of younger teams who like to run, but the Thunder have a great group of guys who play together, so their ability to adapt can’t be underestimated.
The Thunder are playing a Mavericks team which is locked into the 5th seed, so they’ll be resting Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving which makes it unlikely OKC loses. If the Nuggets do somehow manage to lose to the Grizzlies and the Timberwolves win, then the Wolves end up as the top seed and the Thunder slide to second because while they split the season series at 2-2 with each other, the Wolves have a better divisional record. Minnesota won all three of their matchups against the Warriors this season, but each one was pretty close and one of them involved a series of ejections in the first minute after a shoving match turned into everyone trying to put each other in headlocks. The Wolves are dynamic across multiple positions with Karl-Anthony Towns now back, and have a bona fide superstar in the making with Anthony Edwards elevating his game the way he has this season. It’ll take a stellar performance likely from Klay Thompson to beat these guys since they’ll have a host of defensively-apt guards and wings to hound Steph through the series. Regardless of their incredible defensive capabilities, the Warriors have a history of turning Rudy Gobert into a target to great effect specifically during the playoffs: If they can find a way to mitigate KAT and 6th Man of the Year candidate Naz Reid’s impacts on offense, there’s a path to beating Minnesota that doesn’t seem as grueling as it could be.
And then, there’s the juggernaut. The defending champion Denver Nuggets seem to be the consensus for best team in the league today, and for good reason. Denver boasts MVP contender Nikola Jokic as the centerpiece of their team, with an underrated all-star caliber guard in Jamal Murray as his primary partner while employing sharpshooter Michael Porter Jr. and defensive stoppers Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (who both have respectable offensive games themselves) as the rest of their starting cast. The Nuggets bench has a few good two-way wings who can hold onto the leads built by their starters, as well as deep playoff experience as recent as last season when they won it all, all while maintaining continuity with plenty of those guys still on the roster. The Nuggets swept their season series against the Warriors this year, including what many would say was the most heartbreaking matchup amongst a slew of disappointments that concluded with a half-court, buzzer-beating game winner from Jokic at the end of regulation. The Nuggets are as close to a complete team as it gets in the modern NBA, and it’ll come down to just how brilliant Steph Curry can be if they want to win a playoff series against this team. The best choice would likely be to make Jokic beat them himself, forcing him to be a scorer more than a facilitator since there’s evidence (even if a limited amount) that his 50-point performances don’t always translate to wins if he can’t raise the level of everyone around him.
Conclusions, and the Likely Path to the Playoffs
The Kings losing to the Trail Blazers would be nothing short of a miracle given the state of Portland’s roster, and even if they’ve had something cooking the last few games, it’s safe to say Sacramento walks away with a win tomorrow. The Pelicans present a bad matchup for the Lakers, and Brandon Ingram’s return to the floor will give them a boon that’d make the difference in a close game. If the Warriors can take care of business against Utah, they can probably expect to be the 9th seed and face the Lakers first. This would mean the Pelicans lock up the 6th seed with that win, setting up a Kings-Suns matchup in the 7th-8th play-in game, a game which the skidding Kings may have a problem winning since Phoenix has proven they can be a little scrappy (and they just beat the Kings yesterday). If the Lakers do pull out a win, then they’d be up against the Pelicans again, or the Suns, both of which are nearly coin-flip matchups.
Assuming all of the favorites win tomorrow for the 1st seed, the Thunder would take over the top spot, which would lead the Warriors on a not-unfavorable path that involves playing the Lakers and the Kings en-route to the playoffs, setting up a first-rounder against the Thunder - the best option of the three possible 1-seed teams. A Lakers win tomorrow would mean the Warriors play in Sacramento against the Kings instead of at home against the Lakers, and possibly a Suns or Pelicans matchup in the second leg of the play-in if the Lakers do manage to escape in their own 7th-8th matchup.
There’s a lot that has to happen for each of these scenarios to trigger, but one thing’s for certain: It won’t be easy to get to the postseason. The West is the best that it’s been in a long time, with each team in the top 10 not being ruled out for a trip to the conference finals. Golden State is amongst them, but their route will tell a lot about how much gas the dynasty truly does have left in the tank.
(Photo credit: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)