Getty Draymond Green celebrates during a game between the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings.
The Golden State Warriors may have been reeling in the immediate aftermath of Steph Curry’s foot injury, but the team looks to have figured some things out more recently. On Sunday, Draymond Green and Co. dropped the Kings in blowout fashion to win their second straight game.
It was the first time in three weeks the club had logged back-to-back wins. More importantly, it gave the Dubs a one-game lead over the Mavericks for the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.
While capturing a more favorable seed could yield a major advantage for the team during postseason play, Golden State is clearly more concerned about getting things right on the court.
“It’s not something that we’ve spoke about much,” Green said after beating Sacramento. “I think we’ve more so spoke about playing the game the right way, doing the things that we know is going to make this team successful. But as far as the seeding, no. That’s not something that we’ve really spoken about.”
Green on the Seeding Situation
Although the West is a gauntlet regardless of which segment of the bracket a team occupies, the Warriors can probably keep themselves in a better situation by holding down their current spot.
If the playoffs started today, for example, Golden State would avoid the No. 1 Suns and/or the No. 4 Mavs — a team that won the season series with the Warriors 3-1 — until the Conference Finals.
Contrastingly, if the team ends up tied with Dallas for, say, the third-best record, it would lose the tie-breaker, fall to the fourth seed and find itself staring at a potential series with the winningest team in the league in Round 2.
As Green sees it, though, the path is going to be tough no matter where the Warriors land.
“Whether you’re the three seed or the six seed, the way I look at it is you still have to win a road game because no one is trying to go to Game 7. We know how those go and it’s a coin flip,” Green said on Sunday. “So, you still got to win a road game. If you’re the six seed, you still got to win a road game. If you’re any seed, you have to play the better teams to get to The Finals. It is what it is.”
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Are the Warriors Back?
Even before Curry went down, the Warriors had exhibited some troubling signs. And losing six of the seven games that followed his injury event only served to amplify concerns about the team’s struggles.
However, Green believes a turnaround is finally in the works (and just in the nick of time).
“I think it’s starting to pick back up. I think you’re starting to see the defense; they had us as the No. 1 defense in the league for two and a half months. We’re getting back to that and it’s a great time to get back to that,” Green said.
“For whatever reasons we’ve had our lapses, and throughout the course of an 82-game season that happens at times. But we’re getting it back at the right time … We kind of got away from that, but that’s what this team has to be built on going into the playoffs and it’s good to see that’s starting to look how it needs to look again.”
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