Draymond Green wants to face the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the NBA playoffs. If the season concluded with the current standings, he’d have his wish.
A lot can change in the final two weeks of the season, with Golden State, at 39-37, coming off a brutal, mostly self-inflicted loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday night.
The Warriors are a game behind the Phoenix Suns for the fourth seed (though Phoenix has eight games left to the Warriors’ six) and 2.5 games ahead of the Dallas Mavericks (who they have the tiebreaker over) in the 11th seed. They’re also 3.0 games ahead of the Utah Jazz, who have played one game less than Dallas.
Suffice it to say, all of this can change. But if it didn’t, Green would be ecstatic, as he revealed on his podcast on Monday.
From his perspective, it’s all got to do with travel.
The Warriors faced the Denver Nuggets (two-hour flight) Memphis Grizzlies (nearly five-hour flight), Dallas Mavericks (four-hour flight) and Boston Celtics (a “dreadful” six hours, 15 minutes) in the playoffs last season.
That was a lot of time in the air from Green’s now 33-year-old perspective.
Sacramento, meanwhile? It’s a sub-two-hour bus ride away.
“The reason why I said Sac is simply just because of the travel. That’s a lot on your body. If we can ride an hour and 10 minutes up the way, I just think that’s much better for us. Now, Sac is playing well and a very good team, but just from a travel [perspective]. At the end of the day, I don’t really care who we play in the playoffs, I think we can win.”
Golden State will take that bus ride up to Sacramento for the second-to-last game of the season on April 7. It’s one of six remaining games, which are split evenly at home and on the road.
