Man, I woke up this morning still feeling that Timberwolves loss deep in my bones. Uggh. First thing I did? Grabbed my laptop still in my pajamas, coffee steaming beside me, and slapped together a spreadsheet for the Warriors playoff mess. Needed to see how deep the hole really was after last night. Felt like triage for my basketball soul.
Step 1: Facing the Brutal Numbers
I pulled up the Western Conference standings right after that rough loss. Okay, where we at? Warriors sitting at… what was it… 36 wins, 34 losses. That Wolves loss stung bad. Then I hunted down the records for the teams directly above and around them:
- Suns grinding ahead at 42-30? Damn.
- Kings… how? 42-29?
- Mavs lookin’ strong at 42-29.
- And lurking right there with us? Them Lakers at 40-32 and the Rockets breathing down our necks at 38-35 after winning 11 straight? Crazy.
Seeing those numbers typed out made it feel real serious. Sixth spot feels like climbing a mountain now.
Step 2: Playing Pretend GM (The Stressful Part)
Alright, time for some grim math. I decided to play out the rest of the season like a man obsessed. Starting point: assume Warriors gotta win at least… let’s say 6 outta their last 12 games? Sounds doable, right? Fingers crossed.
But here’s the killer: I had to do this for EVERY OTHER TEAM fighting for those slots too. This took forever! Checked schedules:
- Suns got the hardest road? Tough opponents left.
- Kings… their schedule looked kinda medium? Some wins, some losses maybe.
- Mavs got some softer games comin’ up? That ain’t good news for us.
- Lakers… same old Lakers, probably win games they shouldn’t.
- Rockets schedule looked the easiest on paper. Sweating bullets about their win streak.
Started plugging in wins and losses like I was betting against my own team’s future. Super depressing. Kept tweaking it – “Okay, what if Lakers lose this one but Warriors win that one?” Over and over. My coffee got cold.
Step 3: Wrestling with the Ugly Truth
After way too much tweaking scenarios, the cold truth hit me: Forget jumping to 6th outright, that looks like a long shot unless things get wild. That loss to Minnesota bumped the Play-In probability WAY up. Like, uncomfortably high. We’re likely staring at the 9th or 10th seed now. Maybe fighting for 8th if we get hot? Maybe.
The big takeaway staring at my messy numbers? Winning last night against Minnesota was almost non-negotiable. Dropping it screwed us majorly. Now, not only do we gotta win basically all the games we should win, but we also gotta hope two or three teams above us trip up significantly. Gotta root for the Suns to slip, the Kings to be messy, the Mavs to get cocky… ugh, the dependency is awful.
And the worst part? Knowing Draymond might blow a fuse and cost us another crucial game. Feels inevitable. Curry looked absolutely exhausted last night too. Man. This climb just got a whole lot steeper because we stumbled on a step we really needed. Gonna be a nail-biter finish, for sure.
