The Warriors entered this season believing they could defy NBA history and stun the world with a deep postseason run. Their experienced core, still elite but averaging almost 37 years of age, was eager to chase the unprecedented.
They knew even before the opening tip last Oct. 21 that one factor could deprive them of their quest. And, to put a finer point on it, decide the direction of their season.
All the Warriors had to do was the hardest part of all for a team pinning its hopes on four members of the 35-and-up club: Stay healthy enough to peak entering the playoffs.
Even with their record consistently straddling .500 through the first two months, the Warriors still believed if they finished fifth or sixth or even seventh in the Western Conference, that would be acceptable – if they were healthy for the postseason. They would then make the NBA’s youngsters, some of whom dismissed them as “too old,” respect their uncles.
That dream went dark on Jan. 19. Just as the Warriors were starting to look like a team capable of threatening the top teams in the West, going 12-4 over a 30-day span, they lost 36-year-old Jimmy Butler III to a season-ending torn ACL.
“Jimmy’s injury just changed everything,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters in Phoenix late Friday night, after Golden State’s season ended with a 111-96 loss to the Suns in the play-in tournament finale.
“We didn’t find it early in the season; we were blowing some games that we should have closed out, and I could have done a better job. But when Jimmy got hurt, it felt like we were finding it. That injury just derailed us.”
It got worse 11 days later, when Stephen Curry limped into the locker room and was diagnosed with “runner’s knee that sidelined him for 27 games. Meanwhile, 13 days before Curry returned, Moses Moody, a valuable reserve and part-time starter, sustained a season-ending knee injury.
“It’s been crazy,” Draymond Green said of this season. “Just so many guys going in and out of the lineup. Just unfortunate stuff.”
The Warriors were left trying to salvage something positive from a season gone horribly awry. They knew they had seen the last of their best roster, no matter how long the season lasted. Kerr went through 43 different starting lineups.
“But there is still this underlying belief that when it comes to the Warriors,” Curry said. “You always talk about championships. That’s what we’ve established as a goal. But when we had to reshape that as like, ‘OK, can we just make something out of this year? To get a playoff experience? And a playoff berth?’
“And that felt like the right goal, and why I forced my way to try to get back and for us to have that moment we did in LA.”
That moment in LA was the high point of the season. The Warriors reaching into the souls and coming up with 12 extraordinary minutes to create a fourth quarter for the ages: 43 points, 75 percent shooting from the field, 72.7 percent shooting beyond the arc, Draymond Green’s masterful defense on Clippers star Kawhi Leonard. It all added up to the kind of comeback victory that allows a team to float off the floor into the night.
It was a play-in tournament game. The last place the Warriors wanted to be when they convened for training camp last Sept. 30.
That outcome, however, put the Warriors one win away from the playoffs. Could they dig in and find another superlative performance in a win-or-go-home play-in tournament finale in Phoenix?
Not a chance. The magic they captured inside Intuit Dome to send the Clippers into their offseason stayed behind LA. The Suns started thumping early and continued to have their way with a Warriors team that was torturing itself with turnovers – again – and hoping to get a second consecutive special performance from Kristaps Porzingis and Curry, both of whom labored through obvious discomfort.
It was a sadly fitting end to the Warriors’ season. They were victimized by the same components that frequently sank them during the regular season. Too many turnovers and aching bodies.
“It was a roller coaster ride, to say the least,” Curry said of the season. “The way we came in with the locker room that we had, we had our sights set on realistically trying to chase homecourt advantage, knowing where we were last year after the trade deadline with Jimmy.
And then, he goes down. Mo goes down. I miss (27) games. And you see, like, just momentum slipping away.”
Golden State never got the chance to challenge the league’s elite in a high-stakes setting. Age likely was a factor; injuries surely were. The best the 35-and-up club can do over the summer is wonder what might have been.
For a franchise accustomed to pursuing and often achieving lofty heights, the Warriors hobble into the offseason looking back at two of the most unsatisfying “peaks” imaginable for the likes of Al Horford, Butler, Curry and Green:
An encouraging 30-day stretch in the middle of the season and 12 brilliant minutes to win one play-in game when they needed to win two to reach the playoffs.
An unforgettable season they only wish they could forget.