Kurtenbach: The Warriors’ biggest win of the season adds just a bit more confusion before the trade deadline
The Warriors played the Thunder and caught lightning in a bottle.
Is it enough to power the team for the rest of the season?
The best team in the NBA came to San Francisco to play the Dubs, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back. Oklahoma City entered the game as a 9.5-point road favorite.
And despite a 52-point performance from MVP-frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City lost by seven.
Wednesday’s 116-109 Warriors win was unquestionably the Dubs’ best home victory of the campaign. It even resulted in a post-game celebratory water bottle drenching for head coach Steve Kerr.
“We need some feel-good energy around here. You can’t forget to celebrate the small wins no matter what the standards have been,” Steph Curry said.
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Yes, with a well-executed game plan plucked from playoff series with Southwestern Division foes past, plenty of pace and space, some tough made shots down the stretch — including a couple of (brace yourself) mid-range shots — and, pardon the pun, a thunderous dunk, the win is the Dubs’ second in as many days and puts Golden State only three games back from the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference and four back of home-court advantage in the first round.
After a campaign that has been disjointed in concept and execution, the Warriors can make the case with wins on Tuesday and particularly Wednesday that they are, in fact, “figuring it out,” as Steph Curry implored fans (specifically “Twitter fingers”) to do two weeks back.
Or maybe it was just a one-game blip, like the Dubs’ win over the Timberwolves, which preceded Curry’s comments.
We’ve played this game many times before with the Dubs, but this team hasn’t won three straight since November.
So if the Warriors are going to make a move, it’s now or never.
And no, I’m not talking about a trade. At least not yet.
I’m talking about a push up the standings — a push towards the respectability that has eluded them all season.
Without Draymond Green and Jonathan Kuminga, it will be anything but easy, but Wednesday’s win provides some hope.
What a dangerous thing that is.
“This group [is] capable. What we saw early in the year was not a mirage,” Kerr said after Wednesday’s win.
But do we really know that this team is capable? The 12-3 start counts, but so does the 12-20 record since.
There is one week until the NBA’s trade deadline. Wednesday’s win and the positive vibes that followed can sway an already skittish front office to pump the breaks on a big, roster-shaking deal, should one even be on the table.
Another win Friday — that elusive third-straight — could eliminate any chance of a Jimmy Butler, Zach LaVine, or Nikola Vučević — any player that would cost a first-round pick in a trade — coming to the Dubs.
And perhaps that would be a smart decision. Why mess up a good thing, right?
Well, is this a good thing?
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There are three games between now and that deadline. The Warriors cannot afford to still be guessing on if their team is the 12-3 outfit or the lottery team we’ve seen since Thanksgiving.
They have to plant a flag — are they good enough, as is, to make something of this season, or do they need reinforcements?
There is no middle ground because any meaningful trade the Warriors can make would require a serious shake-up, with either several players or Andrew Wiggins heading out of town.
It leaves the Warriors — and fans — looking at a Rorschach test. This team is so undefined, and its supporting players so streaky (Wiggins is averaging 20 points per game over his last nine games, looking like a viable No. 2 circa 2022) that it could truly be anything this season.
But if the Warriors’ front office guesses one way and proves to be wrong in a few weeks, there will be no recourse for correcting the problem.
It’s unquestionably an unenviable situation. Which is worse, an error of commission or an error of omission?
But a decision is coming by next Thursday afternoon in the form of a move or a hold.
And it looks as if it will be debated until the final moments.
The Warriors have played the most “clutch” games in the NBA this season. Twenty-nine contests have been within five points with five minutes or fewer to play.
So, what’s another down-to-the-wire finish for this team?