By virtue of their win against the Phoenix Suns coupled with the San Antonio Spurs’ home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Golden State Warriors have the No. 1 seed in the playoffs once again. For the third straight postseason, Golden State will have home-court advantage in every series it plays. Monte Poole of CSNBayArea.com writes that as nice of a feat as that is, there’s bigger fish to fry in the Bay Area:
The real season begins Thursday morning, after the Warriors spent Wednesday night subduing the Suns in Phoenix. Three games remain in the regular season, and Durant is expected to receive medical clearance Thursday, participate in a full practice Friday and take the court Saturday night against the New Orleans Pelicans.
Here’s what the Warriors are looking at: Nine days of vital preparation, including a three-game dress rehearsal, before taking the postseason stage on April 15 or 16.
“Hopefully we can just finish the regular season well and healthy and get rolling in the playoffs,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters in Phoenix.
“With three games left we still can’t have any slip ups,” Stephen Curry said. “We need to continue to build momentum and do it smartly so we can go into the playoffs fresh and ready to go.”
Rather than thinking about winning regular-season games for the sake of posterity, the Warriors are paying attention to the details, particularly on defense. When Durant went down with a knee injury on Feb. 28, they struggled to make the adjustment while in the midst of their toughest travel stretch of the season.
The Warriors may have sharpened their focus regardless, but losing Durant for six weeks made it a requirement for getting on track while chasing the No. 1 seed. It’s how they’ve won 13 consecutive games.
And now they can march forward, toward the second season.
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It’s conceivable the Warriors could close the season on a 16-game win streak. More likely, they will do some self-regulating. They’ll be more occupied with monitoring minutes while also determining rotations, with executing game plans while also keeping the swagger they’ve gained the past three weeks.
There is no pursuit of 73. There is no MVP award for Curry to lock up. There is no satisfaction to be gained in victory, unless it is there is contentment with the process.
From the moment Durant agreed on July 4 to join the Warriors, this was, first and last and unquestionably about winning the NBA Championship. Anything short of that would be failure of a magnitude felt last June against LeBron James and Cavaliers.
As much as the Warriors crave a rematch with Cleveland, they’ve also made it clear this season has not been spent in pursuit of a specific opponent.
So whether it’s Cleveland or Boston or Washington or Toronto or any other team that comes out of the Eastern Conference, all that matters is bringing the trophy back to Oakland.
