A viral clip of Steph Curry watching from the sideline as Anthony Edwards scored perfectly encapsulates the Warriors’ recent slide.
The Warriors’ loss to the Timberwolves on Friday night was a tidy encapsulation of everything that has gone wrong over the last six weeks for Golden State. Minnesota won, 127-117, thanks to a big night from Anthony Edwards.
The young superstar scored 42 points on 13-for-22 shooting in what marked a much-needed bounceback game for the Wolves following three consecutive ugly losses. It wasn’t as much of a feather in the cap as Minnesota might’ve liked, though, because the Dubs got slammed with another wave of injuries. Not only was Steph Curry absent, so too was Draymond Green, who was ruled out less than an hour before tip with back soreness. Then Al Horford, Quinten Post and Seth Curry all went down with different injuries over the course of the loss. Golden State left the night with four fewer healthy rotation players than when the day began. Such an injury-plagued roster meant Edwards’s 40-burger wasn’t as tough as his previous games hitting that mark. But he still took great joy in getting buckets and created a viral moment with the older Curry brother, hitting a corner three in front of the Warriors’ bench as Steph helplessly watched on.sums it all up. Curry has been forced to watch his team slowly slide down the Western Conference standings since early February; the superstar point guard is battling a case of runner’s kneewith an evaluation scheduled for next weekend . During that time Curry’s team has gone 5–11 and been overtaken by the Clippers for the eighth seed. Losing to a contending team like the Timberwolves with such a banged-up roster isn’t a disaster in a vacuum. But it’s a continuation of how poorly Golden State’s season has gone since Curry got hurt. Injuries are coming for everybody on the roster and even the best player on the court for Golden State on Friday, Kristaps Porziņģis,due to battles with illness. No team in the NBA can withstand as many blows injury-wise as the Dubs have dealt with over the last month or so. Curry is the only man who can reverse the tides as one of the best players in the league, even at 37 years old. But until he recovers, all he can do is sit on the bench and watch as players like Edwards whittle away the Warriors’ already-slim chances of making a run in the playoffs.. After Friday night’s loss to Minnesota they are now in ninth place with a half-game lead over the Trail Blazers in 10th. It’s quite possible at this point that Golden State drops down to the final play-in spot. However, missing the postseason entirely won’t be in the cards. The Warriors would have to be passed by the Grizzlies in the West to fall into the 11th spot on the outside of the play-in tournament and Memphis is currently 8 1/2 games behind while tanking. Through that lens the latest rash of injuries to hit the GSW roster won’t make that big of a difference. But they do make it feel like the hopes of this season are on the edge of dying entirely. Especially since there’s no point in pivoting to a late-season tank with the standings as they are. Butler’s injury was a huge hit to the Warriors’ title chances this season and it was reasonable to believe they fell from contending status the moment he went down. But Curry’s season has been so excellent there remained a sliver of hope that, if surrounded by a talented group of veterans coached up by Steve Kerr, Curry could lead Golden State to a playoff series win or even two if it got the right draw. Last season seemed like a potential model to follow, just with Porziņģis as the midseason acquisition rather than Butler—spend March and April integrating him into the system, earn the seventh seed out of the play-in tournament to play an inexperienced high seed and ride Curry’s greatness however far it can get them. But if everybody is hurt, even if Curry comes back, there’s only so much he can do. The Warriors will be nothing more than a speed bump for any opponent—if they even make it past the play-in with a roster this banged up.Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.
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