Warriors reach new low with terrible losses, face stark play-in picture

SAN FRANCISCO – Rock bottom smacked the Warriors square in the face emotionally hours before MRI results returned on Jan. 19 when everybody knew Jimmy Butler had torn his ACL and was out for the rest of the season. Steph Curry now missing well over a month because of “runner’s knee” has been akin to the Warriors falling on that same rock over and over again. From a pure basketball standpoint, though, the Warriors just hit a new low in consecutive nights with terrible losses to the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls. The results for a proud franchise hurt, especially in the standings. The Warriors know they are bound for the NBA play-in tournament, but they’ve only made it that much harder for themselves by slipping to the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference as they did Monday night after their loss to the tanking Jazz. Warriors coach Steve Kerr on Tuesday night before their eventual loss to the Bulls emphasized the importance of being the No. 7 or No. 8 seed as opposed to the No. 9 or No. 10 seed. “It’s a big deal,” Kerr. “There’s a reason the league did that. Seven, eight you get two cracks at it. Huge advantage. So it’s definitely a focus of ours.” The top six seeds in each conference automatically make the NBA playoffs. But the Nos. 7 through 10 seeds square off in a mini tournament to decide the final two teams to make the dance, and the Warriors keep digging bigger holes. The Nos. 7 and 8 seeds get two chances to punch their tickets while the Nos. 9 and 10 seeds are in a single elimination scenario. Hours after Kerr’s comments, his team laid its latest egg. The Warriors led by four points after the first quarter only to have an atrocious second quarter that had them trailing by six points at halftime. They also were down six going into the fourth quarter but a scrappy group of Pat Spencer, Will Richard, Gui Santos, Gary Payton II and Al Horford mounted a comeback that had the Warriors ahead by eight points with 91 seconds remaining. Then, the wheels fell off in every which way, losing 130-124 in overtime. The last two nights have completely negated the Warriors’ best win of the season from less than a week ago when a shorthanded squad outlasted the Houston Rockets. The valiant effort in a seven-point loss that had poor offensive execution against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night has been all but forgotten. What a difference two nights can make in the NBA. “Both very winnable games,” Kerr said. “Had the lead late tonight, obviously once we should have had. But this is how the NBA is, especially when you’re beaten up. You’re not going to blow anybody up. Games are going to be tight. You got to finish, and we didn’t finish either in the last two nights.” Kerr is right. The Warriors are beaten up. They’re a shell of themselves without Curry and Butler. Moses Moody’s absence from a wrist injury has hurt, too. Kristaps Porzingis, Horford and Richard weren’t available Monday in Utah, and Seth Curry, who made his return Monday after missing more than three months to injury, wasn’t in uniform Tuesday at home. De’Anthony Melton was expected to play his first set of a back-to-back this season and had his minutes Monday night set up to play Tuesday night, but an adductor issue held him out. Yet both games still should have been wins for the depleted Warriors. They know it, as does everybody else who watched the games or not. The Jazz before playing the Warriors had recently gone through a seven-game losing streak to then beat the Washington Wizards and lose to the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bulls played 11 games in February and lost each one, and had also lost to the lowly Sacramento Kings two nights prior to playing the Warriors. Like the Warriors, the Jazz and Bulls also are without multiple top players, and Utah held out Keyonte George for the entire fourth quarter in an effort to lose. Playing for pride is much more in the Warriors’ wheelhouse than any kind of magical postseason. They also still want to find themselves in the playoffs with a healthy Curry as a reminder to the rest of the league for next season. Players aren’t making excuses and feeling sorry for themselves, and also understand the reality they’ve created from these kind of losses. Payton was with the Warriors when they were the No. 10 seed in 2024 and got embarrassed by the Kings in a single-elimination play-in game. Spencer was converted to a standard contract last season as the No. 7 seed Warriors won their first play-in matchup on their home court and went on to upset the No. 2 seed Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. It’s clear what a difference in seeding makes, and it’s clear what the Warriors’ more likely destination is. “When you can get two stabs at it, if you need to, it’d be great,” Payton said. “But to put ourselves in this position, like I’ve said, we’ve got to finish strong to find our way back up to the No. 8 or 7. Finish strong, continue to do what we do, lock in on the defensive end, put ourselves in the best position every night and I think we can get it done.” “On any given night in this league, as you can see, anyone can beat anybody, so you don’t want to put yourself in position to have to go and win two games,” Spencer added. “But look, we’re more than capable of doing it at full strength. But got to be realistic. It’s much easier to get in from that seven-eight game than the nine-10 game.” Curry can’t come back soon enough, and he isn’t going to come back soon enough. The Warriors have lost three straight games for the first time in three months, and even the No. 7 seed appears out of reach. It doesn’t get worse than the ways they lost to the Jazz and Bulls on back-to-back nights, and now the Warriors will sprint through these final 17 games in a contest of musical chairs to see who gets to sit down as the No. 8, 9 or 10 seed with rickety body parts to climb out of a new low.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Warriors reach new low with terrible losses, face stark play-in picture

Trending News