As the Warriors sit uncomfortably on their 20-20 record expressing opinions about what’s best for the future while advising the front office to proceed with caution, the NBA schedule is blowing a kiss to Golden State.
None of their next nine games, over 18 days, requires packing up and getting to the airport. Eight of those games are at Chase Center and the other involves a bus ride to Sacramento, where they will spend one night in a hotel.
This amounts to the Warriors’ last best chance to shed the monotonous misery of the past eight weeks. If they can’t find their way out of the quagmire by Feb. 4, any chatter about making a deep playoff run will sound irrational.
If they can exploit nearly three weeks of home cooking, any chatter about reaching the NBA playoffs and becoming a threat feels more realistic.
“We know we can be competitive. We showed that toughness tonight,” Stephen Curry told reporters in Minneapolis late Wednesday after the Warriors closed a four-game road trip with a 116-115 win over the Timberwolves. “Every team is trying to find ways to get better and for us, we’ve been great for a very long time.
“This is just a unique year where we have to be able to stay relevant, give ourselves a chance and just have some life in a playoff series. And we have a whole lot of confidence that we can beat anybody.”
If ever that attitude is going translate into repairing this fractured season, it should be now.
The Washington Wizards come into Chase on Saturday. They have the NBA’s worst record (6-33). Then, on Monday, the Boston Celtics come in the first of their four-game swing through the Western Conference. Golden State won at Boston (28-12) in November, so this is a chance to sweep the defending champions.
The Warriors then travel to Sacramento (21-20) for perhaps their most consequential non-playoff game there since the Kings arrived 40 years ago. Golden State lost the last two matchups by a combined 54 points. Another blowout would validate a change in the Northern California hoops hierarchy.
Following that are six consecutive home games, with the Warriors as clear underdogs only once. The Chicago Bulls (18-23) on Jan. 23, the Los Angeles Lakers (21-17) on Jan. 25, the Utah Jazz (10-29) on Jan. 28, the Oklahoma City Thunder (34-6) on Jan. 29, the Phoenix Suns (20-20) on Jan. 31 and the Orlando Magic (23-19) on Feb. 3.
Winning all nine games is unrealistic. Winning eight is highly improbable. Seven wins would demonstrate a possible revival, six a hint of progress. Five would leave the Warriors roughly where they are, hoping to escape mediocrity but less likely to accomplish it.
Four or fewer wins over the next nine would be catastrophic to Golden State’s chances of rescuing a season already dangling from the edge of relevance.
“You want to win,” Andrew Wiggins told reporters at Target Center. “That’s the main thing. You want to win. And I feel like we have the roster to do it. We have Steph Curry. Steph Curry is who he is. He’s one of the greatest people and players to ever touch a basketball.
“We just got to keep playing hard and we have the squad to do it; we started out 12-3. We know what we’re capable of. We’ve just got to get back to it.”
That 12-3 start dissolved long ago under the weight of a 25-game stretch during which the Warriors went 8-17. They won back-to-back games only once since Nov. 22 and haven’t won three in a row since Nov. 10-15, their most impressive week thus far, beating the Thunder in Oklahoma City, and coming home to vanquish the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies.
The blueprint to renewal begins, as always, with defense. Being consistently focused, knowing personnel and assignments. Golden State’s slide is rife with missed/late rotations and such fundamental failures as neglecting to block out, which is how Donte DiVincenzo hustled around Dennis Schröder for a layup that brought Minnesota within one with 12.1 seconds remaining on Wednesday.
Wiggins must maintain the level of assertiveness that can punish defenses from all three scoring levels. Buddy Hield must make 3-pointers at or near his 40-percent career rate. Schröder must continue his slow adaptation to the Golden State offense. There are other elements, to be sure, but there is no recovery without significant contributions from those three.
“The challenge of trying to figure out how we put all these pieces together has been difficult,” Curry said. “Very inconsistent. But it can’t kill your vibe of having optimism that you can figure it out. It’s a daily challenge you’ve got to remind yourself to just have fun and play with joy like we did (Wednesday), and the rest of it will kind of work itself out.”
Once this NorCal stretch is over, the Warriors will be on the road for 20 of their final 33 games. Eight of the last nine games are against opponents with playoff aspirations. There is plenty of season left, but the next nine games will tell us if too much was wasted.
