Golden State’s upset loss may send the Warriors to the Play-In
The Western Conference snow globe seems to get a hearty shake every day now. Earlier this week, seeds 4-8 were all tied with 32 losses. On Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets stunned the league by firing head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth. On Wednesday, it was the Golden State Warriors who shook things up, but their stunner came on the court instead of off of it.
The Warriors entered Wednesday’s action in a four-way loss column tie, but with a home game against the depleted San Antonio Spurs on their schedule, they had little to worry about. Or so we thought. Despite building a 14-point lead, the Warriors were outscored by 15 in the fourth quarter and ultimately lost a 114-111 heartbreaker a buzzer-beating Harrison Barnes 3-pointer.
It was an ironic ending to a night defined by Luka Dončić returning to Dallas for the first time as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. In the end, it was another player returning to his former home — Barnes to Golden State — that made the most significant dagger of the night. Dončić’s win clinched a playoff spot for the Lakers and took them one win away from clinching the No. 3 seed in the West, but Golden State’s loss has the potential for far greater postseason implications.
The Warriors have now slipped into a loss-column tie with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Both have 33 losses, and are therefore primed to face each other in the Play-In Tournament’s No. 7 vs. No. 8 matchup. The Warriors still have a game against one of the teams ahead of them in the standings, a Sunday bout with the Clippers, but the Clippers already hold the season-long tiebreaker against the Warriors through their three head-to-head wins. That means for Golden State to make it out of the Play-In Tournament, someone ahead of them needs to lose.
Fortunately, the schedule is helpful in that regard. The Memphis Grizzlies play Minnesota on Thursday and the Denver Nuggets on Friday. Golden State has the tiebreaker over Memphis, so a Grizzlies loss in either game (or their Sunday finale against Dallas) would be beneficial for them. However, if Memphis beats both, then Minnesota falls a loss behind the Warriors and Denver ties them with 33 losses of their own. In other words, either the Grizzlies or Nuggets will lose a 33rd game, so the potential for further tiebreakers and standings shuffling still exists.
Speaking of Denver, the Nuggets won their first game without Malone on Wednesday, knocking off the Sacramento Kings 124-116. The Clippers also earned a key victory, though it came against a Houston Rockets team that has already clinched No. 2 in the West and had nothing to play for. Add all of this up and we still have no clue who will escape the Play-In Tournament in the West, though Golden State certainly made things harder for themselves with Wednesday’s loss.
We do, at least, know who will be playing in the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game. With their loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Phoenix Suns were eliminated from Play-In contention. The Kings and the Mavericks will therefore face off for the right to play against whoever loses the No. 7 vs. No. 8 bout. Home-court advantage in that Kings-Mavericks game will be determined in the coming days.
The only two Western Conference seeds that are set in stone as of Wednesday night are the Thunder at No. 1 and the Rockets at No. 2. Everything else is still up for grabs, and we aren’t especially close to clarity anywhere except No. 3, where the Lakers can clinch with one more victory. So buckle up, folks. There’s going to be plenty of shuffling between now and Sunday, the final day of the regular season.
