The NBA regular season has come to an end. After a bizarre, nearly six months of watching this Warriors team waffle between looking title favorites and incompetent, Golden State secured the No. 3 seed with a comfortable, 128-107 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
At least one home series
For the first time in Chase Center’s short history, there will be a home playoff series. The building, which has often seemed sanitized and lacking any sort of the identity that existed at old Oracle Arena, has found life in recent weeks.
There has actually been, you know, an atmosphere at the arena down this late season stretch.
Even without Stephen Curry on the court, the combination of Klay Thompson — who is looking a hell of a lot like his old self — Jordan Poole and Draymond Green has breathed life into this team, especially at home.
There is no question that there will be a home court advantage, and it will exist for at least the first series. In all likelihood, it’s probably only going to be that first series, with a likely matchup with the No. 2 seed Memphis Grizzlies in the second round, and the Phoenix Suns probable to face the Jazz or Mavericks, the latter of whom just lost Luka Doncic to a calf injury.
Regardless of how that plays out, the Warriors (53-29) are in the playoffs again and have at least one series of a home court advantage.
A squirrelly third quarter, immediately rendered irrelevant
The Warriors are supposed to be the league’s best third quarter team. But to no one’s surprise, they came out to start the second half flat.
A Warriors team that at one point let by 29, had that lead cut to 11 in the third quarter.
And then it was rendered irrelevant in the fourth quarter as the Warriors went scorched earth thanks to a red-hot Klay Thompson, who, for the first time in his career — yes, career — has scored 30-plus points in three-straight games.
Thompson was electric, finishing with 41 points on 16-of-29 shooting and 7-of-14 from three. As Reggie Miller described it on the broadcast, his shot has a true shooter’s arc back.
He’s got his legs under him and took hold of this game as things started to get a tad dicey. He was hitting shots at off angles, side-stepping defenders, and just shot with the stone-faced, raw confidence we’re familiar with.
Kuminga might not have a ceiling, and needs to get playoff minutes
The other spark for the Warriors was Jonathan Kuminga, who finished with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting, 3-of-4 from deep with 5 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal.
For a player who is 19 and has even less of a background in basketball than most other 19 year olds, his feel and talent for the game is outrageous.
He demonstrates a knack for cutting to open space and identifying those moments when defenders aren’t set. You see him notice those half-second lulls where someone’s backing up, communicating with a teammate to deal with another shooter and Kuminga is suddenly airborne, hammering the rim.
It’s unclear what his ceiling is. He has absolute elite athleticism, is a solid ball handler, passer and has developed rapidly as a shooter. The fact that he is 19 years old is borderline disturbing because the potential for how much better he could become has no limit.
The Warriors will obviously have times they need to lean on veterans, and Steve Kerr will assuredly be parsimonious in doling out minutes to his younger players if they are reckless. But Kuminga’s energy and ability to score in bursts is something that can’t be sidelined. He has to be a component of this
