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The Warriors turned in three sub-par quarters against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. They won anyway.
While the Warriors were scoring at an incredible clip in the first quarter of Wednesday’s game against the Bulls, their defense was lacking in a big way — Chicago dropped 40 on them in the opening frame. Both teams’ offense came back to earth a bit in the second quarter, but the action was still end-to-end with little resistance on either side.
If not for a monster, 32-12 third quarter, the Warriors likely would have lost Wednesday’s game — the Bulls outworked them for the vast majority of the game. The Warriors turned it on for 10 minutes or so, in the third, and their incredible firepower overwhelmed their opponent.
And then the Warriors coasted — and I mean coasted — to the finish line, winning by seven.
How many times have we heard that story this season?
It’s incredible, but the team that turned every one of their games into appointment viewing is becoming downright boring, in large part because they, themselves, seem bored.
Seriously, how many more regular season games do we need to collectively slog through?
Some might tell you that the Warriors will regret not caring — that this will come back to bite them later on in the season or in the postseason — and while no one can predict the future, I feel comfortable in saying that’s simply not true. The Warriors don’t care because they don’t have to care — they know, deep down, that they can turn it on for a few minutes and win. And what evidence is there to the contrary?
Sometimes the Warriors don’t win games like Wednesday’s contest in Chicago — sometimes the big third quarter doesn’t come, or the opponent, firing on all cylinders, counters — but that doesn’t matter. The Warriors will get away with it far more often than not, and with that kind of sporadic (at best) effort, they’ll be able to walk to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. Even if the Warriors somehow fall to the No. 2, it still won’t matter, so long as the team is healthy heading into the playoffs, when they’ll start trying in earnest.
We’ve seen these Warriors at their best — even if just for spurts — they’re a level beyond unstoppable. If they put that kind of play together for even half a game, every night, there isn’t a team in the league who can take three off them in a seven-game series, much less win the series outright.
I’ve covered this team for the last four years — I’ve seen nearly every game they’ve played during that stretch with too many of those viewings coming in person to count. From my vantage point, this team has clearly checked out from this regular season.
They’ve leveled up — the regular season simply doesn’t matter to them.
Take, for instance, the Warriors’ game against the Cavs on Monday. That was a marquee game on a holiday — a contest that you circle on your calendar when the NBA schedule comes out.
The Warriors’ effort level in that game was lacking, if we’re being nice. But, of course, they still won.
You might look at that game, which was back-and-forth affair for three quarters, and presume that it was an intense competition between two great teams, but it wasn’t. The Warriors weren’t giving their best effort — not even close.
Not only did Golden State meander from one side of the court to the other while LeBron and the Cavs played like their hair (or lack thereof) was on fire, they didn’t even try anything tactically interesting. Golden State stood around the perimeter on offense and played straight-up defense on Monday.
Yes, against the team they’ve played in the NBA Finals for the last three years — the other squad in what is supposedly the NBA’s best rivalry in decades — the Warriors were toying around, treating the Cavs like they were the high schooler going up against the little, grade-school brother in the driveway.
But it’s not arrogance if you can get away with it.
And not only did they get away with barely trying Monday, they ran away with the game, as Cleveland tuckered out and the Warriors knocked down shots in the fourth quarter.
Again, they did that against the Cavs — I’m not sure why anyone would have expected a better effort level against the Bulls on Wednesday.
Perhaps the Houston Rockets — the Warriors’ opponent on Saturday — can elicit a sense of fear. Perhaps a few days off in Chicago (a wonderful city, in my unbiased opinion) will inspire the Warriors to travel to Texas and show their top contenders in the Western Conference their full might.
Or the Warriors might go down there, give another C, C-plus effort, and still leave with a win. And a win Saturday would be 15 in a row on the road, one off the NBA record. In how many of those wins have the Warriors given more than 10 minutes of solid, two-way, playoff-level intensity?
Maybe the Boston Celtics, a team that beat the Warriors earlier this season in a game that, frankly, could have gone either way, will provoke an A game when they visit Oracle Arena next weekend.
But who knows — maybe the Warriors will rest a star or two in that game (preparing for the playoffs, naturally) and still win by double-digits behind a nice six-minute spurt in the second half. Isn’t that the more plausible scenario, after all?
The Warriors might be too good for their own good. The team has the best record in the NBA, a five-game cushion atop the Western Conference, and a locker room completely devoid of fear of any other NBA team.
Yes, there are things the Warriors can improve upon, but it’s clear that this is a team that’s begging for the playoffs to start. They need something to engage them, and instead, they have to play 36 more generally meaningless regular season games.
Another title seems like an inevitably for the Warriors, and that’s making this regular season interminable.
