The Warriors were never quite out of it. And as Utah let them linger, Golden State just kept chipping away at a once massive Jazz lead.
At the end of Saturday night’s contest, it was an enthralling 111-107 Warriors win that clinched a playoff berth for the first time in three years.
Potential first-round preview?
With four games remaining, the Warriors are just barely clinging to the third seed.
The Dallas Mavericks are hot on their heels and if they were to catch them, as it stands, it would be the Warriors facing the Jazz in the first round of the playoffs as the four and five seeds.
There is some room for that to change, with a chance Warriors can drop all the way to the six seed, or hold on at three, for a likely matchup with the Denver Nuggets.
For most of this game, you could make a compelling argument that the Warriors wouldn’t match up well with the Jazz, or really any team. Obviously it’s tough to gauge exactly what this team is without Stephen Curry in the lineup.
But for so much of this game, it felt like the Jazz just had more. They had more shooters, more size, more athleticism.
By the end of the night, the Warriors, Curry-less as they are, poured ice cold water on that argument.
There was a relentlessness to the performance typified by Draymond Green, and a bit of fire from Gary Payton II. It was erratic at times.
Even as the Warriors were visibly frustrated throughout so much of the game, with the size of the Jazz and myriad perplexing calls by officials, they persevered.
It was built upon that outstanding defense Steve Kerr has longed for. Oh, and that other thing the Warriors have been known for: shooting.
Thompson, Poole lead stunning shooting night
At one point, Golden State trailed by 21 points, and each time they got within striking distance, they wasted their chances.
Then they went scorched earth, going on an 18-0 run into the fourth quarter, highlighted by a Klay Thompson who refused to stop chucking.
It felt different than past games when there was a hapless, halfhearted optimism to Thompson’s shots. He had hit a few early and was dead set on keeping that flame burning.
He was launching not just on those “good looks” that Kerr has encouraged him to seek out. He got into that old space where every look was good, no matter if it was falling away, under a flying arm or off balance.
By the end of it, Thompson finished with 36 points on 14-of-28 shooting and 8-of-17 from three.
“I could feel I was going to have a big night in the weight room,” Thompson said after the game.
When things haven’t gone right for the Warriors without Curry, it’s usually been Jordan Poole on a one-man mission, often coming up just short. He was outstanding again, with 31 points of his own, plus 6 rebounds and 6 assists.
But unlike that bummer against the Suns when Thompson was 5-of-21, he got serious help this time around.
Even Draymond Green got aggressive offensively, driving at Rudy Gobert with confidence. He finished with a typical 10-point, 9-rebound, 7-assist night and kept the offensive moving with his high-screen playmaking and screening.
All of those nights, in concert with an efficient 17 points from Andrew Wiggins (7-of-10, 3-of-4 from three), who was outstanding defensively, gave the Warriors the leverage they needed to snap a four-game skid at just the right time.
Rotation question marks still linger
Even with all that excitement, there is still no real clarity to what the Warriors’ best rotation is.
The strongest lineup, in theory, would be Stephen Curry, Jordan Poole, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Draymond Green.
But in order for the bench groups to keep the game close, there’s got to be some staggering involved. And while there’s been plenty of opportunities for experimenting, there hasn’t been one common-sense recipe that’s emerged.
When Curry returns, there should be enough firepower between him, Poole, Thompson and Wiggins on the scoring front, but it still feels, at least at times, like this team is not deep enough with shooters.
It seems it takes consistent infernos from two of three of Curry, Poole and Thompson for this team to score enough, and maybe that will prove viable in the playoffs.
The point is that we just don’t know because we haven’t seen it. It’s hard to know if something will work when you’ve never seen it.
When the Warriors were struggling, it was due to the Jazz not respecting their non-shooters. They encouraged the likes of Green, Kevon Looney, Nemanja Bjelica, Andre Iguodala, Otto Porter Jr. and Payton II to shoot from outside because they looked at them as non-threatening options.
Until the Jazz’s offense was stifled and both Thompson and Poole shot lights out to close out the game, that was a viable strategy for Utah.
With about a week until the playoffs, it’s tough for Kerr to know who else he can really trust.
Payton II showed again that he should be getting some sort of minutes, given his defensive value and the way he acts as a human sparkplug. He’s that guy that comes in and breathes life into the crowd with his energy and a couple of electric scores, often borne out of turnovers he creates.
Porter Jr. got some key, late-game run, and his 8 rebounds were massively important. He provides value with his size, occasional scoring and other elements, like his screens.
But outside out those two, it’s hard to say the Warriors can trust anyone. And saying they can trust Payton II and Porter Jr. is more about their intelligence and value defensively than it is relying on their scoring.
James Wiseman is out for the season, Moses Moody is out with a shoulder injury, and Jonathan Kuminga has suddenly fallen out of favor in the rotation.
All that youth is adding up to very little right now, and it’s a reminder of the fact that the Warriors’ brass bet on that youth over adding another playmaker or veteran scorer.
Andre Iguodala, whose current value is mainly limited to his defensive hands, said the decision to go with that youth “disrespects” the core of Curry, Thompson and Green.
The recipe for the Warriors to win certainly leans a lot on that core playing lights out and getting massive value from Poole and something out of Wiggins.
This may all work out, but the struggles for the Warriors at many times this season bely the fact that they declined to double down on this veteran core. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll all be left wondering how much more this team could have achieved with some serious veteran investment.