The whole Warriors dynasty could’ve been long dead by now — more about nostalgia, cute cameos, statue-construction announcements, and fond good-byes than grinding through an absurd late-season schedule and driving their way up the Western Conference standings.
This probably should’ve been over. There was too much burden on Stephen Curry and Draymond Green’s shoulders at this stage in their lives and careers. There wasn’t enough help coming from the younger players. Maybe, as a dreary epilogue, they could eek out another play-in appearance or two and get quickly brushed out again a time or two. And then go away.
Four championships, six trips to the Finals, a great run while it lasted, RIP Warriors dynasty. Try it again in the 2030s.
But wait. Why were Curry, Green, and Jimmy Butler so ferociously determined to play — and beat — the Nuggets Friday night at Chase Center on the back end of a ridiculous back-to-back? Why did all of the Warriors look so committed, so focused, and so tough? Why did it feel very much like — yes, I’ll say it — a late-round playoff game throughout the Warriors’ 118-104 victory at Chase Center, to get them to 46-31, holding onto the fifth seed in the West, with a solid chance to win home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs?
Something is happening here. Actually, it’s been happening for a few months, kicked off by the franchise-shifting trade for Butler. From there, it hasn’t let up, not really for a second. It’s actually only gotten more powerful with the playoffs right up ahead. And Chase absolutely is part of this moment.
“Our fans can feel what’s happening now,” Steve Kerr said.
Everybody can feel this, from owner Joe Lacob’s postgame “what a great trade!” bellow in the hallways a few weeks ago to Brandin Podziemski, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, and Quentin Post filling essential roles, to the palpable sense of satisfaction among all the exhausted players in the Warriors’ locker room on Friday, to Curry barking out substitution suggestions (or more than suggestions) to Kerr late in the game.
The Warriors are feeling it right now — winning in Memphis on Tuesday, beating the Lakers in L.A. on Thursday to finish off a grueling six-game road trip, then turning around and beating Denver on Friday at home. I can’t remember a tougher logistical stretch in the last 25 years of Warriors basketball. I’m not the only one who wrote them down for a loss or two. But instead of looking worn out and distracted, the Warriors got stronger through these games.
And when the Warriors start to feel it in April … well, the rest of the league should start to wonder when and how they can be stopped.
“It just confirms who we thought we were,” Draymond said Friday. Of course, Draymond started this by predicting a Warriors championship run back in February, but that was probably mostly about trying to speak something into existence. There’s a lot more proof now — this-team-can-win-the-West sort of proof.
“We said from the time we got Jimmy [Butler] the sky’s the limit for this team,” Draymond continued. “These games matter; we talked about it yesterday, on just getting these young guys these meaningful game minutes. They’re playing great. BP was incredible again tonight. Everybody off the bench, QP was good in his minutes, JK was really good in his minutes. … I think it just further proves who we thought we were.”
‘All that championship-caliber teams do’
Draymond, as always, is the first to the fight and first to the point. He blasted out the Warriors’ manifesto long ago — they are back, get used to it.
Curry is always more measured. He’s been on a tear since Butler’s arrival and even more so lately, going for 52, 37, and 36 points, respectively, in this three-game run. And he’s clearly feeling great about the last few months. But things hit differently when Curry is openly talking up the Warriors’ chances to win a fifth championship this June; and that’s what happened on Friday night.
“We’re playing like that,” Curry said. “We still have a lot of work to do. … [But] we understand how to win games, whether it’s games where the tempo is a lot faster, you’ve gotta score. Or it’s a grind-it-out defensive game. We’ve played better fourth quarters with leads.
“All the things that championship-caliber teams do, we’ve been doing.”
It’s not just that the Warriors are now 21-5 since Butler’s arrival and 21-2 when you subtract the three losses when either Butler or Curry were out. It’s not just that they’ve passed Memphis in the last few days and are right on the Nuggets’ and Lakers’ heels. It’s not just that the Warriors had been beaten regularly by the Nuggets and Lakers recently but flipped that this week, just when they had many excuses to lose both games.
It’s all of those things. And it’s the understanding that Curry and Draymond are a historically tough tandem to beat in the playoffs, and now the Warriors have Butler, too.
“It’s clearly different [from] two months ago,” Curry said. “We understand what we’re capable of. And whether you’re predicting it or speaking it into existence or whatever it is, the confidence is there. So just ride that wave.”
As Kerr noted, the Warriors can clinch at worst the sixth seed — and stay out of the 7-8-9-10 play-in — by winning four of their final five games. That would get them to 50 wins, my general cutoff for true championship contention.
If the Warriors get to 50, it’s probably likely that they’d be the 3 or 4 seed, though much of that is out of their control. They just want to get no lower than the 6 seed, get a week off for their veterans while the play-in tournament goes on, then line up against whoever they draw in the first round.
But they’re behaving like a conference-finals team lately. Kerr is coaching every possession like it could decide a playoff series — subbing Curry in for late-quarter offensive possessions, subbing Draymond in for extra defensive possessions. Curry himself told Kerr to get Gui Santos back in late in the fourth on Friday because he wanted more defensive versatility to hold off the Nuggets.
It might not all work out perfectly. They aren’t the favorites in the West or probably even the second favorites, given the road journey they’re likely to face in the playoffs. It will be tough for three greats in their mid-30s to survive the wear and tear of multiple rounds. But when they get like this, and when Kerr is playing his particularly successful brand of postseason chess, who’s picking against the Warriors to find and exploit every angle necessary?
“Those little decisions can swing the momentum either way,” Curry said of his Santos recommendation. “Just shows we’re engaged.”
The five-man lineup that has changed things
If there’s a unit that could be the difference between winning and losing in the playoffs, and has already lifted the Warriors, it’s the one that Kerr has been using to start the second and fourth quarters, while Curry rests.
This quintet — Butler, Draymond, Podziemski, Post, and Moody — turned the game around to start the second quarter on Friday. So far, this group has held its own when matched against most of the opponents’ starters and taken over games when matched up against backups, as it did when Denver sat Nikola Jokic during these minutes on Friday.
Over the last 15 games, that unit has a +21.6 net rating, mostly thanks to an incredible defensive rating of 88.9. (The Thunder has by far the best overall defensive rating in the league at 106.2.) Add in Podziemski’s blistering offensive performances lately (26 points or more in three of the last four games, 19-of-27 from 3-point in those three games) and suddenly Curry only needs to hold onto or extend leads when he comes back into the game, not frantically try to make up for collapses.
“That top of the second, top of the fourth lineup, it’s been very effective against everybody,” Kerr said. “It just feels like we’re gonna make a really good defensive stand with that group. With Quentin out there, we’ve got some spacing so Jimmy’s got some room to work with. The way Brandin is shooting the ball right now, it’s impressive to watch.”
Draymond has a simpler explanation for why is that lineup is working: the new co-alpha.
“Jimmy Butler,” Draymond said. “Got another ‘one’ in that group. That group has struggled at times because there was no ‘one’ out there. We’ve got a ‘one’ now. … We just [put] Jimmy Butler to that group and it changed everything.”
It’s impossible to miss. You can hear it in Curry, Draymond, Kerr, and Butler’s voices now. You can see in Curry’s eyes when, as Draymond describes it, he just waits for his teammates to clear out of the way so he can swish again and again. You can feel this at Chase Center and everywhere else the Warriors have gone lately, and may go again in late-April, May, and maybe even June.