With more than four and a half minutes left in the first quarter, the Warriors found themselves down by 22 points against the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night at Barclays Center. They didn’t fret an ounce of fear, winning 121-119, outscoring Brooklyn 116-92 from that point on.
“The one thing that impressed me most is we were down 27-5 and I looked over and nobody blinked,” Draymond Green said to reporters at Barclays Center. “Everybody was just like, ‘All right, here we go. Let’s figure it out.’ And we did that.”
The Warriors enjoyed a comeback win in New York for the second time in three nights. They trailed by 10 points only to beat the Knicks by 12 on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. Their start against the Nets was about as bad as it gets. Their response was the punch of a champion with a 40-25 second quarter.
It capped off a 4-1 road trip. All four wins were with Jimmy Butler on the floor, as was the Warriors’ only loss.
To get those four wins, the Warriors also needed 56 points from Steph Curry to beat the Orlando Magic after once being behind by 17 points. While they never trailed against the Charlotte Hornets, they didn't pull away until the fourth quarter. The win over a Knicks team without Karl-Anthony Towns was one of the Warriors’ better complete performances all season.
Curry and Butler showed why they’re such a feared duo to end the road trip, even if it was only against the Nets.
But that win over the Knicks was the lone one against a playoff team. Returning to San Francisco, the Warriors are the Western Conference's No. 6 seed and could be facing a season-defining seven-game homestand starting Saturday.
“Well, it’s a quick turnaround,” Steve Kerr said. “We’re spending the night, flying home tomorrow and then playing a 5:30 [p.m. PT] game on Saturday. Really difficult schedule playing against a really hot team in Detroit.
“I imagine that will be a very tough game. I hope we can respond quickly coming off a long flight and a long trip, but all in all I’m looking forward to being home for a couple of weeks and seeing my dog. That’s the main thing.”
Starting a homestand against the Pistons used to mean something different. Now, it means the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference and winners in 10 of their last 12 games. Cade Cunningham played in 11 of those games and averaged 25.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 9.2 assists.
The Portland Trail Blazers are the Warriors’ next opponent after the Pistons, and they too are another surging team, having won five of their last seven games. Any game against Sacramento is another chapter in this evolving Northern California rivalry, especially after the Warriors crushed the Kings at Golden 1 Center two weeks ago.
The seventh and final game of the stretch is against the Toronto Raptors, which can be labeled a chance at revenge for such a terrible loss up north two months ago. But, really? Sandwiched between the seven games are the three that deserve to be circled.
Those are, in order, games against the New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets and Milwaukee Bucks – the No. 3 seed in the East, the No. 3 seed in the West and the No. 4 seed in the East, respectively.
Brash comments aren’t as earned as they once were, but Green has earned the right to guarantee another title for the Warriors. That’s what comes with the territory of reaching the mountain top six times and raising a championship banner after four of those treks.
At home and in front of Dub Nation, most notably in those three games, the Warriors will have every chance to prove Green’s words to be right. Will they?
“We’re trying to win a championship and we know how much that takes, how much better we have to get to do that,” Green said. “I think we’re playing good basketball. But we’re still figuring a lot of stuff out, can still get a lot better – will get a lot better.
“I don’t think we’ve hit any stride.”
The Warriors played one team with a winning record during their five-game road trip. This seven-game homestand will feature five teams with winning records. While Golden State is out of the play-in tournament for now, three games back of the No. 5 seed and 3.5 of the No. 4 seed, they’re a slip-up away from falling out of the playoff picture and three losses from the No. 10 seed.
Traditional and advanced stats show the Warriors have played like contenders since Butler’s arrival. So does the eye test, and so does the vibes test. Meaningful basketball is all they’ve wanted, and now it’s here for the taking to define the season on their home court.
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