Warriors and Lakers need to be rooting against Denver
When the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, the Lakers and Warriors were grudgingly happy. While they lost ground to Dallas, Denver is the scariest threat to their deep-run playoff chances.
Both Los Angeles and Golden State want to climb up in the standings, escaping the 9-10 play-in game. But they're three games behind the three teams virtually tied for sixth-to-eighth place — an imposing deficit this late in the season. It doesn't help that the Warriors lose tiebreakers to every team above them.
That means that in all likelihood, the best seed either team can get is No. 8, even if they win two play-in games. In which case, they would face the top seed in the Western Conference, almost certainly one of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets or Minnesota Timberwolves. And both teams would greatly prefer the Thunder or Timberwolves before the reigning champs.
Denver hasn't lost a single game to the Warriors or Lakers this season. Golden State has lost seven straight games, going 0-3 last season and 0-4 this year. Counting their sweep in the conference finals, Los Angeles has dropped eight straight to Nikola Jokic and Co. Reversing those trends against a championship-hardened team in the first round is a tall order. After enduring play-in games, either LA or GSW would have to go on the road and win in Denver, where the Nuggets went 10-1 in last year's playoffs.
With Minnesota, the outlook is not great, but it's much better. The Lakers are 1-2 this season, winning only a game where Minnesota was missing starters Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert — and the Wolves were ahead after three quarters. The Warriors are 0-2 this season and have lost three straight with one defeat coming after Draymond Green tried to choke out Gobert.
The Thunder present the best opportunity for a first-round upset.
LA is 3-1 against Oklahoma City and its size bothers the undersized Thunder.
Golden State is 1-3 against Oklahoma City this season, but two of those losses came in overtime. The third came when the Warriors didn't have Stephen Curry or Green.
The Thunder have had a great season, but they're not an intimidating matchup for either the Lakers or the Warriors, who have a long history of winning big games in OKC.
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