The Clippers Can’t Avoid The Warriors In The Playoffs
- Updated: March 25, 2016
The Golden State Warriors have looked marginally more beatable of late. Now, before we get carried away, that means they’ve recently had a loss at San Antonio – where the Spurs have won 45 straight as of this writing – and a close win in Minnesota two nights later. The sky isn’t exactly falling in San Francisco. Nevertheless, seeing Stephen Curry struggle shooting a few times lately, and seeing the Spurs make the Warriors look mortal, ought to offer at least a glimmer of hope to the rest of the Western Conference.
For these reasons there was some degree of optimism heading into Wednesday night’s contest at Oracle Arena. It seemed like a nice opportunity for the Clippers to stop their cold streak and deal Golden State its first home loss of the season. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. The Clips’ stars struggled in Golden State, and the Warriors coasted to yet another win. With the victory, the Warriors sealed a 4-0 season sweep of the Clippers, and seemed to regain their dominant form.
Golden State’s edge as we head toward the postseason is just about impossible to overstate. A season ago the Warriors were quite clearly the best team in the league, and went through the playoffs as strong favorites to win the championship, even over LeBron James and the revamped Cavaliers (who, one year ago, looked pretty strong). This year it feels like they’re about twice as good, to the point that the rest of the NBA is being overlooked. As stated on a recent Bill Simmons podcast, this year’s Spurs might be having one of the top-15 or so regular seasons of all time – and pretty much no one cares, because the Warriors might be having the best regular season of all time, even if there’s not that much difference between them and the Spurs.
If there’s a team in the league that should care deeply about the difference between the Spurs and the Warriors, however, it’s the Clippers. The team is 1-2 against the Spurs this year, with one close loss in San Antonio early in the season and another lopsided loss more recently, with Blake Griffin on the bench. This isn’t to say the Clippers are necessarily equipped to beat these Spurs in a playoff series, but it at least appears to be a more competitive match-up than Clippers-Warriors has looked like.
Unfortunately, we’re approaching the point at which it’s almost mathematically impossible for the Clippers to avoid the Warriors and find themselves in the Spurs’ half of the Western Conference playoffs.
Looking ahead at the seeding possibilities, let’s recall that the NBA will now seed playoff teams based solely on record, with no particularly protection for division winners. Keeping that in mind, we can see that the current NBA standings paint a direct picture of what the seedings would look like if the season ended today. Most teams have 10-12 more games to play, but it’s looking like the Warriors will take on either the Mavericks, Jazz, or Rockets in the 1-8 match-up, while the Clippers will face the Grizzlies in the 4-5 series. Because the winners of these two series play in the conference semi-finals, and because the Clippers and Warriors will both be favored, a date with Golden State is starting to look inevitable.
Barring something extremely unexpected, that’s the case for every team in the Western Conference that hopes to make the NBA Finals. Getting through the West was always going to mean beating the Warriors at one point or another. But the Clippers’ recent slide – 3-7 in their last 10 games after the Golden State loss – has all but guaranteed that that point will come before the Western Conference Finals. Not long ago, LA was still in a position to compete for the 3-seed, and thus placement on San Antonio’s side of the bracket. But a surge by the Thunder has come at the worst possible time for the Clippers, coinciding directly with the Clippers’ skid. The Clippers are 5.5 games back of Oklahoma City for third place, with just 12 games to play. Stranger things have happened, but Clips fans ought to buckle up: that Warriors series is coming soon.
Again, in all likelihood they’d have eventually had to play the Warriors regardless of seeding. But one has to assume the Clippers would rather have had a conference semi-final date with San Antonio first. That’s a series they can win, a legitimate path to the Finals, and one more series during which Blake Griffin can regain some health. By contrast, the Warriors match-up looks more daunting than ever after Wednesday night.
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