Five reasons the Warriors won't make the play-in tournament
It's time to get real about these Dubs...
APRIL FOOLS I’ll never switch sides on the squad like that by using my precious lifespan to write fearmongering articles to drive clicks in Dub Nation.
Wow, the Dubs made it through March with a winning record, eh? Golden State scratched and clawed their way to a 9-7 record over the last 31 days, barely good enough to hold a 2-game lead over the Houston Rockets for the 10th seed a.k.a. the final spot in the play-in tournament. The Dubs even went 4-1 on their recent road trip to make sure they finished the month on a high note.
A few things have crystallized during the month of Steph Curry and Draymond Green’s birthday:
The young guys like Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and Trayce Jackson-Davis are absolutely ready to contribute right now to winning basketball. Kuminga averaged 19.4 PPG on 51% shooting, while Jackson-Davis averaged 11 PPG and 7 rebounds. Moody averaged 8.6 PPG on 47% shooting while demonstrating a defensive tenacity that has to buy him some playoff minutes.
The demise of Klay Thompson and Draymond Green has been vastly overstated. These two Warriors legends have been written off for dead at various points of the season, even by Dub Nation members themselves. But Thompson averaged 17.8 PPG on 40% shooting from beyond the arc in 27.5 MPG in March. And Green went from getting himself kicked out in 4 minutes against the Orlando Magic to putting up a historical statline against the Spurs last night.
And it’s absolutely clear that Stephen Curry is still a force to be reckoned with after he turned 36 years old two weeks ago. It’s truly marvelous that he doesn’t seem to be losing steam at all despite a recent ankle injury taking him out for a couple games and years of wear and tear on his legs. He sliced and diced the Spurs up with an excellent game, tallying 33 points and 8 assists while knocking down 7 three-pointers.
Seeing Curry decimate the Spurs never gets old for me. I remember during his ascension to superstar level that San Antonio was always the true test of his might. Sure he could put up 54 on the Knicks, but what could he do against Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s dynasty? Over time he’s lit those black jerseys up night after night, whether they had superstars or not. It always a good time seeing him cook San Antonio.
Now as the team plays it’s final eight games of the season over the next couple weeks, we’ll truly see what this group is made of. They’ll need all the aforementioned names in this article to lock in in order to push through to make the playoffs.
If Draymond was asked to mentor JK, who is mentoring Moody?
I'd almost forgotten Evan Fournier was still in the NBA, saw his name on Detroit's roster for tonight's game, checked his stats. He was a pretty good shooter, in the Klay mold, for a lot of years, but though he is two years younger than Klay, he has fallen off the proverbial cliff the past couple of years and looks thoroughly washed. Given Klay's age and catastrophic injuries, it's pretty remarkable how well Klay plays, despite the obvious drop in his production.