Warriors' season ends meekly in Phoenix as the team completely runs out of gas in the desert
R.I.P. to the 2025-2026, it was a heckuva run.
The season is over. Phoenix won 111-96 in the final play-in tournament game for the 8th seed. The Warriors finish 37-45 and go home.
But before we talk about what happened on the floor last night, I need to say something first: this team gave you everything it had. Every last drop. And you deserve to understand exactly how and why.
Brandin Podziemski finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds on 9-of-17 shooting. He was the Warriors’ best player in a play-in elimination game, a sentence that would’ve sounded like fan fiction back in October. He’s 23 years old. He is not supposed to be here yet, not like this, not carrying this weight, not with this much riding on every possession. But Moses Moody isn’t here. Jimmy Butler isn’t here. Klay Thompson isn’t here. Jonathan Kuminga isn’t here.
So Podziemski played 39 minutes and dragged his undersized body into every contested board, every defensive assignment, every moment that required someone to simply refuse to quit. That young man left everything on the floor of a hostile arena in the desert, fighting for a franchise that bet its future on him.
Speaking of the future, how much longer will a healthy Stephen Curry be a part of that? He played 36 minutes, scored 17 points on 4-of-16 shooting, and finished minus-13. The three-point numbers hurt to type: 3-of-10 from deep. Here is what I want you to hold onto though. Curry returned from a serious knee injury to lead this franchise through a play-in run that nobody gave them a realistic chance of surviving. He came back not because it was smart or safe or strategically sound. He came back because that is who Stephen Curry is. He is constitutionally incapable of sitting out a fight that matters. He looked like an exhausted man who’d been carrying something heavy for a very long time. Because he has been. And he never once put it down.
Draymond Green played 36 minutes, finished with 5 points, 6 assists, and 5 turnovers. He also got ejected late after a confrontation with Devin Booker, which is as on-brand an ending as anyone could write for Draymond in a Warriors uniform. Love him or prepare a legal brief against him, that is a man who never once decided the fight was over before the buzzer.
Steve Kerr shared a moment with Curry and Draymond postgame that’s already circulating everywhere. Whatever you felt watching that, whatever hit you in the chest when you saw those three men together for what might be the last time in that context, that feeling is the correct one. Don’t let anyone tell you it was just a regular coaching staff moment. It wasn’t.
From the Suns’ side, Jalen Green dropped 36 points on 14-of-20 shooting with 8 threes. He was genuinely unstoppable. Devin Booker added 20 on 10-of-10 from the free throw line. Jordan Goodwin, a name most casual fans couldn’t have picked out of a lineup in January, finished with 19 points and 9 rebounds.
The Suns led for 99% of this game. The Warriors’ largest lead was 2 points. This was not a game that got away. Phoenix was better last night, full stop.
When Podziemski is scrambling for loose balls and De’Anthony Melton is coming off the bench to give you 16 points in 28 minutes, you are watching a team that found out what it was made of in the most unforgiving laboratory imaginable. Kristaps Porzingis played 15 minutes and was a minus-22. He came back too soon from a serious illness because this team needed him and he answered. Al Horford played 26 minutes with knees that have been screaming since February because that is what veterans on this roster do.
These are not the actions of a team that quit on the season. These are the actions of men who looked at an impossible situation and decided the only acceptable response was to show up anyway. The dynasty as we knew it must change to get any more juice out of it. There are enough pieces here to knock off the Clippers, but that’s the bare minimum of being a contender in the NBA.
The sadness is real. And so is the pride we have for this team. Rest easy Warriors, you gave it all you had. I cannot WAIT to write these season reviews!
Dub Nation, as we soak all this in, I have a question for you: what did this season meant to you? Please share in the comments and my next piece will be breaking down the most consistent themes.