Preview: Legacies aren’t made in April - unless you're in the Play-In
All players clear to play, but will they?
Despite a strong finish to the season after trading for Jimmy Butler, the Golden State Warriors fell just a bit short of their goal and have ended up in the NBA’s dreaded Play-In Tournament. Not their last chance, but a loss today would put them up against their final opportunity to stay alive. Still, good to know that tonight cannot possibly be the last game of their season.
Win tonight’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies and the Warriors would go on to battle the Houston Rockets in Round 1. A loss sends the Warriors down to the final elimination game - where they would face whoever won between the Kings and Mavericks on Thursday; with the winner advancing against the top-seeded Thunder.
This one will be tight. The Warriors and Grizzlies finished with the same record. Golden State owns the tie-breaker (which gives them the home court advantage here) because the last time these two teams squared off, Curry went for 52, 10 and 8 to help the Warriors win their third (of a total of four total) head-to-head matchups this season. The Warriors are 0-3 in the Play-in, with losses to the Los Angeles Lakers (2021), Memphis Grizzlies (2022) and Sacramento Kings (2024).
GAME DETAILS
WHO: Golden State Warriors (7/8) vs. Memphis Grizzlies (8/7)
WHEN: Tuesday, April 15th, 2025; 7pm PDT
WATCH: TNT
Healthy enough. Deep enough. Good enough.
Golden State had some issues, but easily could have been in a better position. Draymond Green’s botched game-tying layup, getting out rebounded by minus-17, looking at Buddy Hield for a game winner in OT. It’s close. Short of success. But darn close.
What the Warriors change in tonight’s game will tell us all a lot about where their biggest concerns really are.
No team is 100% healthy at this point in the season, so it’s with mixed relief that we note that both Stephen Curry (thumb) and Jimmy Butler (thigh) are fully cleared to play. In fact, there are no names on the Warriors’ injury report ahead of this evening’s game - even Gary Payton’s thumb didn’t make the list. This is a no excuses game, and the Warriors are good to go. Well, good enough.
The more pressing questions are still present. Can Curry manufacture more magic? Will Draymond Green be a problem solver, or problem creator? And then the big question: what will happen with the rotation?
For those that missed it, coach Steve Kerr dramatically tightened his rotation, fully removing both Jonathan Kuminga and Gui Santos - key rotation players throughout much of the season.
Instead, it was Gary Payton that came in when Kuminga normally would have. Payton was fine; two points, four rebounds, three assists and a steal over the course of 24 minutes. Hield and Looney both got 16 minutes. Quintin Post played 10. Jimmy Butler played all 48 minutes.
Last week, Kerr signaled a lot of this:
"Every game is different and I think Jimmy's arrival took away a lot of Jonathan's minutes at the four," Kerr said Thursday on 95.7 The Game. "There's no doubt that as soon as Jimmy arrived and we started winning, we leaned into the lineup combinations that enhanced Jimmy because we were winning and Jonathan was out for that whole stretch.
"We went like 17 and 3 or something, so we're going to keep doing what's been winning. But the lineup with Jimmy, Jonathan and Draymond doesn't fit real well, frankly. It just doesn't. We need more spacing.
One of the team’s most dynamic rim attackers and part of the young core, it would seem like Kuminga would at least warrant a short run or two, even in a must-win game.
Instead, he got zero minutes. A DNP-Coaches Decision.
Instead of bitterness or conjecture, let’s unpack this a bit.
To understand this decision, the historical inertia is critical. This isn’t just about Kuminga returning from injury and not playing as well (which is true), things have changed in his absence. His most compelling skill is suddenly less needed. Butler is a better option if the team needs to manufacture some rim pressure, and much better at hitting the shots if he does get to the line. This isn’t a knock against Kuminga - a respectable developing player - Butler is just insanely good in these areas.
According to Cleaning the Glass, Kuminga draws fouls on around 16.5% of his shot attempts (good enough for the 94th percentile). Butler, however, gets fouled on over a quarter of his attempts (25.7%), a mark that puts him in the mathematically impossible but demonstrative 100th percentile. No one does it better than Butler.
Add in some struggles with incorporating a rusty Kuminga back into the mix, and the clear patter of diminishing minutes can be heard running down the hallways of Chase Arena well before the playoffs.
Santos is a bit more fungible, more easily explainable that he would see large fluctuations in his minutes. But I wonder if Kerr and his staff will be honest enough to fully second guess both of these decisions.
As has been documented all over the place, Santos was the team’s best on-off impact player. Per Cleaning the Glass, the team was a full 10 points better per 100 possessions with Santos on the court than they were without him. Kuminga is a trickier situation.1
Making the choice to not give either one of these players a few minutes in the first half, and subsequently the rest of the game is tough - and it seems asynchronous to what makes the Warriors work best.
Kerr has earned the leeway, and definitely knows more about basketball than I do, but I really hope they reconsider these DNPs.
Prediction
Legacies aren’t made in April - unless you're in the Play-In.
Tonight isn’t the end of the road, but it’s close enough that the gravel's starting to kick up. For the Warriors, this game is a reckoning: not just for a season’s worth of missed rebounds and misfired rotations, but for a team staring down its own evolution in real time.
Warriors go nine deep in their rotation and outlast the Grizzlies.
Kuminga owns one of the worst net impact ratings. Per CtG, the team is -9 net per 100 possessions with him on court. 33rd percentile (not good).
Post-game thread up!
I’ll be at the game tonight. I’ll be able to report onsite exactly what stage heart attack I’m in. Current status: pretty philosophical and looking forward to a bayview burger.