Play-in prep, if that, in LA
[honest recap + Clippers preview]
If you’re on our Discord server (or follow the right people on social media), you know that Draymond Green and Kawhi Leonard are not playing in tonight’s season finale.
[NOTE: We have two versions of our Discord, free and VIP ($5/mo) which has real-time feeds in the context of the above.]
The fact that Leonard is out and the Trail Blazers just need to beat the tanking Kings at home in Portland tonight, tells us that the LA Clippers don’t want to risk injury to Kawhi and will just concede the 8th seed, which will result in a Clippers-Warriors 9-10 Play-in (re-)matchup on Wednesday.
So what is there to play for tonight? My detailed analysis (embedded below) from Golden State at Sacramento revealed a few problems:
Gui Santos was burned on multiple times by Nique Clifford and Devin Carter, exposing one of his greatest weaknesses: point-of-attack defense.
Kristaps Porzingis is in the midst of a slump: 7-for-21 from the field over the last two games and and 1-for-11 over the last three.
Gary Payton II had a brain fart and got himself ejected. Can he simply lock in and get rid of the silly stuff? I had said in the recap that Draymond also had a couple of mindless turnovers, but obviously he’s out, so he won’t be able to improve that until the actual Play-in game.
We know how one Wardell Stephen Curry runs his two-man actions with Dray and Gary, but how will the actions with Porzingis and Al Horford look?
Here is the whole recap in all three formats (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts). I did not have time to compile highlights, as mentioned in the talks, but I hope to do so and remind the fandom of how beautiful the Warriors ecosystem can get — glimpses of having a squad — even though it may have been disguised by a so-called “bad loss” result in Sacramento:
I think only the fourth and second points above can be addressed tonight. I would almost wish for Santos not to play tonight, as his usage has been high and he’s been dealing with a pelvic injury. He will come off the bench, as it has been reported pregame that Steve Kerr will start Curry, Brandin Podziemskj, De’Anthony Melton, Al, and KP, so hopefully Gui gets a quasi-rest.
If he gets burned by a few Clippers tonight, that’s okay. Just clean that up by Wednesday night.
The third point above, Payton is always just hit-or-miss, mostly hit over the past few months, when it comes to not doing crazy things.
Of course, every game is a development opportunity for guys like Charles Bassey, Malevy Leons and Nate Williams, but this one game, we may not glean much. It would be nice to see Williams bounce back from a bad game against the Lakers, though.
According to SpoTrac, Bassey signed a rest-of-season contract, so he is eligible to play in the Play-in and playoffs as the 15th man. Williams is only on a one-year two-way deal, so he becomes a free agent as soon as the off-season hits.
But there might also be a subtle extra audition happening: Pat Spencer. I already talked about this at length here:
It may help his cause to have his last meaningful game produce results reminiscent of his three-game road trip run back in early December at Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago but barring a surprise “next man up” situation in the upcoming Play-in or playoffs, this might be his last game as a Warrior.
We will be on the live chat Watch Party tonight, per usual, rooting for no injuries, some good reps with Porzingis, but all in all, this 82nd game of 2025-26 should pass innocuously.
Tomorrow night, I’ll go live with a salary cap sheet analysis and we will dig deep as to what the Warriors can offer, say, KP and Dray (if he opts out and re-extends), add the Draft pick’s probable salary, and speculate on how that might impact Melton and, therefore, whom to pick in the Draft.
It will be a first stab at the numbers, literally starting from scratch. The following week, I’ll hop onto Yossi Gozlan’s Third Apron channel and look at possible trades.
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