Warriors knock off Suns to stay in the thick of Western Conference playoff race

HERE WE GO WARRIORS, HERE WE GO!

For the record, I’m still all in on these Golden State Warriors repeating as champions, if they have any semblance of full health. A defense boasting Draymond Green, Kevon Looney, Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson, Gary Payton II, Jonathan Kuminga, Donte DiVincenzo, AND the shotblocking phenom Stephen Curry?

Theoretically that should be pretty difficult to score against. And we all know that when these guys get cooking on offense, they’re a complete juggernaut. Just ask the Phoenix Suns, who got smacked around last night 123-112 by the Dubs in Chase Center.

I know plenty of ink has been spilled on Golden State’s atrocious road performances, and with good reason. Anytime a defending champion is 7-26 away from their home court, it’s more than fair to point withering criticism at their title hopes.

But what about the flip side? The Warriors are dominant at home, boasting a 29-7 record as they feed off of Dub Nation’ raucous support. That 80% victory rate is fourth in the NBA behind only the Memphis Grizzlies, Denver Nuggets, and Milwaukee Bucks.

Their home stats are extremely encouraging:

• They lead the league in assists per home game at 30.7.

• They shoot just under 39% from beyond the arc in Chase Center, good enough for fifth best of all home teams.

• They have a third ranked defense at home.

I’m also thinking about Draymond’s quote after a recent loss to the Grizzlies.

HoopsHype @hoopshype

Draymond Green not considering Grizzlies-Warriors a rivalry: "Rivalries are created by ‘you win, I win.' Clearly, we won four times and I think their organization has zero championships. So I can't consider that a rivalry. I mean, anybody can win in March."

“Anybody can win in March”. That sounds like a grizzled 4x champion with his eyes on the postseason, who isn’t going to overreact to some grisly losses. This also sounds like we probably won’t really know what we’re going to get out of this team until the shadow of the postseason falls over us in April.

Will they have enough health and championship continuity to be the best version of themselves? Another question: will their opponents have the health and resilience to beat these guys four times in seven tries? We’ve haven’t seen that trio be eliminated out of the Western Conference playoffs since 2014. And as Curry (whose 35th birthday is today) reminded Chris Paul last night, a lot has changed since 2014.

TheWarriorsTalk @TheWarriorsTalk

Steph to CP3 after muscling through him for the and-1: “This ain’t 2014 no more” 💀