SAN FRANCISCO — The once-surging Warriors ran into a big man and their biggest problem this season on Friday night.
And both sent a clear message to the Dubs ahead of next week’s play-in tournament:
Slow your roll. Know your place.
It was easy to get caught up in the hype the Warriors have created over the last few weeks. The Dubs had been arguably the NBA’s best team in their 10 games prior to Friday night’s contest with the Pelicans at Chase Center. In the overused parlance of sports bloviators like myself, they were “peaking at the right time.”
But Zion Williamson operates on his own schedule, and the Warriors had no answer for him on Friday.
Draymond Green tried to stop him. He even did so a few times. But the only player who could truly stop Williamson, the Hardwood Hulk, from doing whatever he wanted was, well, Williamson.
As the Warriors turned the ball over eight times in the second quarter, it was Williamson, playing center, who created space — that enviable gravity only the greats possess — for the Pelicans’ barrage of 3-pointers. Paired with the Pelicans’ enviable defensive length, Williamson had four steals in the frame — all of them pocket-picking — New Orleans scored 45 points in the second.
Still, the game was in the balance in the fourth. Such is the NBA.
But that’s when Williamson really took over.
Fourth-quarter possession after fourth-quarter possession, the Pelicans big man, who is seemingly a perfect cube with a 45-inch vertical leap, played point guard and worked for his own shot. He made 3 of 5 shots, and controlled the contest. It was playoff-style basketball at its finest — a star player attacking again and again until someone took him off the court.
Ultimately, Williamson tired himself out. But the damage was done. His teammates, who knocked down more than half of their 3-point shots Friday, hit two clutch ones late, and while the Warriors tried to make it competitive in the final moments, New Orleans won 114-109.
The Warriors needed Friday’s game. Without it, they’re almost certainly locked into the No. 9-vs.-10 game of the Play in Tournament. Following a win over the Blazers just a day ago, the Dubs seemed destined to jump up to the double-elimination No. 7-vs.-8 game.
The final seedings will be decided in the final game of the season—the entire Western Conference will play on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
One thing is clear today, though: the Warriors were getting a bit of a contact high from all that cloudiness within the standings.
Williamson was an avatar on Friday — the human (I think) representation of two forces conspiring against the Dubs.
The Pelicans are a bonafide playoff team with a no-doubt superstar leading the way. This is the kind of team the Warriors have not beaten this season.
It’s the kind of team the Warriors — for all their positive play as of late — aren’t beating in a 7-game series, either.
And they might not even reach a 7-game series, given that they’ll likely need to win two single-elimination games to advance to one.
Those previous five months count, too. They’re pretty informative, in fact.
With Friday’s loss to the Pelicans, the Warriors are now 4-18 against the West’s top six teams, the Thunder, Timberwolves, Nuggets, Clippers, Mavericks, and Pelicans.
Oh, and they’re 1-3 against the No. 7 Suns, who can swap places with the Pelicans on Sunday.
A winning percentage of 20 against the best in the West — but sure, this team can win a seven-game series.
This team has turned the ball over all season — all decade, really. That’s not going to magically change come the playoffs.
The playoffs are full of teams that can shoot the 3-pointer at a high clip and protect the rim even better. It’s kind of a requirement.
And they’ll all have a player like Williamson.
Well, in the ability to totally control the game on offense, anyway — there’s only one Zion.
Once daylight savings time starts, the whistles go into hiding in the NBA. We saw that on Friday. Refs allow far more contact, and that puts an even greater emphasis on top players creating their own shots — or great shots for their teammates — even with defenses totally keyed in on them.
Williamson was able to do that Friday.
Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Anthony Edwards, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, and Paul George can also do it.
So can Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving, Devin Booker, and Kevin Durant.
And sure, Steph Curry can do it, but he’s not as big and long as most of those guys.
We saw that shortcoming manifest on Friday when he turned the ball over seven times while he ran into five-man lanes and perimeter double-teams (with great rotations to deny Green from receiving the pocket pass).
Experience is great, but I’d rather have some wings. That’s what the playoffs are about, after all.
And the Warriors don’t have a wing they can trust. Jonathan Kuminga missed the game with injury, but he’s no one’s idea of a playoff-winning No. 2 right now. (And perhaps not ever.) Meanwhile, Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins (the second-best player and top wing on the 2022 title team) shot a combined 11-of-33 from the floor on Friday. They had one total assist between the two of them. It was par for the course for the Warriors’ top wings — they might show up one game, but can you expect anything resembling consistency, especially against good teams?
There’s a sample size of 81 games that says “No.”
It all puts a game like Friday’s—and all the big games to come—on Curry’s shoulders. Meanwhile, he’s clearly weary of dragging this team this far.
And you can see how ineffective this formula of “save us, Steph” is with the Warriors’ record against the best of the best — their competition in the postseason.
But now Curry will have to drag the most expensive team in NBA history a bit more, eventually dropping them off in an offseason where big changes are inevitable.
There truly is no rest for the weary.
Well, except in this case: with the Warriors’ ability to win the No. 8 seed now out of their hands and the possibilities looking grim, it sounds as if they’ll sit their veteran players for Sunday’s season finale vs. Utah.
The Warriors might lack what it takes to win in the postseason, but at least they’ll be decently rested for it.
