The Golden State Warriors are the defending NBA champions, and returned every major contributor from a team that went 16-1 in the postseason a year ago.
However, injuries and complacency have led to a disappointing regular season marred by underachievement and lack of effort. The disappointment culminated in a 119-79 loss to the Utah Jazz in the Warriors’ final game of the regular season.
Through the trials and tribulations of the regular season, Warriors players and head coach Steve Kerr have maintained that the Warriors’ issues with complacency and boredom should be significantly allayed once they reach the playoffs and begin to play truly meaningful games.
Several media members expressed the same sentiment. But after going 7-10 in their last 17 games and suffering the embarrassing loss to Utah, some have begun to question whether the Warriors will in fact be able to flip the switch, and even if they can, whether it will be enough.
Apparently, this sentiment has extended to some coaches and general managers of teams the Warriors might face in the Western Conference playoffs. Drew Shiller of NBC Sports Bay Area reported Wednesday that ESPN’s Zach Lowe said on Lowe’s podcast that some coaches and GMs expressed that they would rather face the Warriors in the first round than the Jazz or the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I was talking with several coaches and execs from teams in the West morass – from 3 to 9 – the fear factor for the Warriors without Curry does not exist,” Lowe said. “There are people who will say, ‘I would rather play the Warriors right now in the first round than the Thunder or the Jazz.’ Right now. In this state, in which they are 7-10 in their last 17 games and Curry is hurt and they just lost by 1,000 points last night. These are (group chats) and texts that are happening last night during the Jazz’s complete destruction of a team that clearly doesn’t care very much. That’s a bridge too far for me, but anyway…”
Though the Jazz pummeled the Warriors Tuesday night, the Warriors did defeat the Thunder 111-107 on Tuesday, April 3 in Oklahoma City without the services of Curry or Andre Iguodala. Additionally, Iguodala, despite having missed six of the Warriors’ last seven games, should be able to play in Game 1 of the playoffs, according to Kerr.