Why Warriors’ next three games are precisely what they need

Why Warriors’ next three games are precisely what they need originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

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Now that they’ve blasted through the relative cheesecloth portion of the schedule, riding the crest of success, the Warriors confront the wall. Or, rather, a series of three walls.

“We love the start; to go 6-1 exceeds our expectations,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters Monday night in Washington, after a 125-112 win over the Wizards. “We also know that our schedule has been kind to us. We’ve played some teams who have been injured. We’ve played some young teams.

“It’s about to get a lot harder. We play basically the three best teams in the league the rest of this week. I like our progress, but we have a lot of work ahead.”

They go to Boston on Wednesday to face the defending champion Celtics, who are 7-1 with an average win differential of 14 points.

They then head for Cleveland, where on Friday they will face the unbeaten Cavaliers (8-0).

Golden State’s five-game road trip ends Sunday at Oklahoma City against the unbeaten Thunder (7-0), who ended last season atop the Western Conference and hold that same position in the current standings.

The Warriors won’t see a tougher three-game stretch this season, but this is a perfect time for an early status test. To check the strength of their assets, get a hard look at their weaknesses and return to the lab properly focused. Whether they win all three games, lose all three or finish somewhere in between, this only tells them who they are in early November.

Which is not who they want to be in March and beyond.

“This is game seven, and right now we’re trying to put together a great season,” Draymond Green said at the Capital One Arena. “So, for us, it’s not necessarily about the team we’re playing, or how hard they’re playing, or lack thereof. It’s about us. And coming out and establishing the identity of the team that we want to be for 82 games and…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-warriors-next-three-games-154347197.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-11-05 15:43:00

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