It’s a three-game slate for the Dubs, as they take on the Wolves, Mavs, and Lakers.
Once again we find ourselves hoping the Golden State Warriors can shake off the funkiness that they’re carrying into the new week, and wash their mouth of a disappointing loss.
Last week saw the Dubs play brilliant basketball for seven quarters, only to let the eighth quarter squander so much of what they had worked for.
But so it goes, and we move on, hopefully with Klay Thompson returning form the sickness that sidelined him on Sunday.
Now let’s look forward to the week that will be, and look back on the week that was.
Where they stand
Record: 43-18
Standing: 2nd seed in the West (6 games behind the Phoenix Suns, 1.5 games ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies)
Offensive rating: 14th (112.2)
Defensive rating: 1st (105.8)
Net rating: 3rd (+6.4)
Team ratings are garbage-time adjusted, courtesy of Cleaning The Glass.
Weekly recap
Thursday: Beat the Portland Trail Blazers 132-95
Sunday: Lost to the Dallas Mavericks 107-101
The Dubs took care of business against a Blazers team that was missing Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkić, and had recently traded away CJ McCollum and Norman Powell. And then they were well on their way to dispatching of a quality Mavs team before Luka Dončić and Spencer Dinwiddie decided to go ballistic with the buckets, while the Warriors just sat by idly watching a 21-point lead slip through their fingers.
And that’s how you end up with a split week.
Performance of the week
Steph Curry vs. the Blazers: 18 points, 5 rebounds, 14 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 5-for-11 shooting, 2-for-7 threes, 6-for-6 free throws.
In the two games since the break, Curry has handed out 24 assists, while turning the ball over just four times. It’s been all kinds of fun seeing him in master playmaker mode, and against Portland he did an expert job at setting his teammates up so that they could come out of the break with some offensive rhythm.
Honorable mention goes to…
Kevon Looney vs. the Mavs: 8 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 4-for-5 shooting, 0-for-3 free throws.
Looney had a little bit of a Draymondian stat line against Dallas. He really took advantage of Curry’s gravity, sometimes using it to get himself buckets, and sometimes using it to kick the rock out to the open man. It was an excellent performance.
Highlight of the week
Teamwork makes the dream work.
defense to offense in style
@NBCSAuthentic pic.twitter.com/1NNWT5qjN4
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) February 28, 2022
This week’s schedule
Tuesday: @ Minnesota Timberwolves (32-29), 5:00 p.m. PT
Thursday: @ Dallas Mavericks (36-25), 5:30 p.m. PT
Saturday: @ Los Angeles Lakers (27-33), 5:30 p.m. PT
The Dubs get started on a rather brutal four-game road trip, which concludes on Monday with a trip to the Denver Nuggets. It’s a pretty important stretch of games, especially with only 21 left on the calendar.
Hopefully Thompson is back for all of them, and hopefully the returns of Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala are nearing…
Easiest game of the week
Saturday at the Lakers.
It feels weird to say that. The Lakers play the Warriors tough, and they have LeBron James. This shouldn’t be the easiest game of the week. But the Wolves have simply been a better team this year, have the size with Karl-Anthony Towns to give the Dubs fits, and it’s less likely that Klay is back for this game.
Hardest game of the week
Thursday at the Mavs.
We all saw what the Mavericks just did to the Warriors in San Francisco … now we get to see them try and do the same thing, but in Dallas!
Prediction time!
In last week’s review/preview, 24% of people saw the 1-1 week coming. 70% of fans were optimistic, and thought the Dubs would go 2-0.
Let’s try again!