Bill Yin breaks down his prediction and pick for tonight’s game between the Golden State Warriors and Brooklyn Nets.
The 34-38 Warriors will host the 17-55 Nets tonight at 10 PM EST. The Nets have listed Noah Clowney, Egor Demin, Michael Porter Jr., Day’Ron Sharpe, Nolan Traore, and Danny Wolf as Out. The Warriors have listed Stephen Curry, Seth Curry, Al Horford, Quinten Post, and Moses Moody as Out. Moody just suffered a gruesome knee injury amidst a career-season, shutting him down for the season.
The Warriors are 12.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook with the total for this game set at 216.5 points.
Warriors vs. Nets prediction, preview
Golden State is still hanging onto the West play-in picture at 34-38, but the roster is barely holding on without Steph Curry right now. Curry is out again, Jimmy Butler is out for the season, Moses Moody just suffered a season-ending patellar tendon rupture, so Steve Kerr is working with a barebones version of the team. Even so, Golden State still plays like Golden State. The Warriors are first in assist percentage and 4th in assist ratio, which fits the ball-movement identity: they want to string together actions, move defenders side to side, and create open looks by making the weak side work. Without Steph, though, that style gets a lot harder to sustain because there is less automatic gravity in the system. That puts more on Brandin Podziemski to organize, more on Draymond Green to control possessions on both ends, and more on other pieces like Kristaps Porzingis to give them scoring from spots where the defense can’t totally ignore him. The good news for Golden State is that Brooklyn is not especially sharp at shutting off ball movement. The Nets are allowing 27.4 opponent APG and 115.8 opponent PPG. They’ll try to grind out this must-win tonight against the reeling Nets to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Brooklyn’s in some deep trouble this season, and perhaps even next season. They’re on a current eight game losing streak, have lost 16 out of 18, and injuries have gutted their roster (look above for their injury report tonight). Brooklyn will be leaning heavily on younger guards and wings to create offense, which can produce some lively possessions but without any semblance of structure. The Nets still share the ball at a decent rate: they’re seventh in assist percentage, but the difference between Brooklyn and Golden State is that the Nets’ movement often feels developmental rather than intentional. Nic Claxton gives them rim-running, screening, and interior defense, while the perimeter group can be streaky and prone to turnovers. That has shown up loudly lately; Brooklyn just lost 134-99 in Portland with 22 turnovers, and TeamRankings’ ratings page has the Nets 29th in predictive rating and 27th over their last 10 games. The path for Brooklyn is pretty simple here: win the Claxton minutes (he’s their lone starting player still standing, force Golden State into tougher half-court possessions, and hope the Warriors’ injury pile finally overwhelms their system.
Warriors vs. Nets pick, best Bet
Best Bet: GS Warriors -12.5 (-105)
The Warriors, despite being without Steph, are not as banged up as the Nets are. The Nets are a mess and missing the majority of their starting roster. They have low odds of winning this game and also don’t have much reason to. It’s going to be a tough watch, but I’m expecting the Nets’ depleted roster to be unable to put up much resistance against the Dubs tonight as they’ll continue chasing a playoff spot while weathering the storm without Curry for the short term.