Uh-oh.
Just 10 days ago, I took a look at where the Golden State Warriors stood in the Western Conference standings. At the time, the Dubs occupied the 10th seed — the final spot in the play-in tournament. But they were 3.5 games ahead of the first team out — the Houston Rockets.
The Rockets had slid to 31-35, and I wrote this about them:
Watch out for Houston next year. They could be very good! Until then, the Dubs will try and use them for an April win after the Rockets have likely turned the page to next year.
Oh, silly, stupid me.
I hadn’t put any stock into the four-game winning streak the Rockets were on when I wrote that. I thought they were just being cute.
Since then, they’ve gone on a five-game winning streak. You can do the math on that one: they’re now on an nine-game winning streak, and while the competition has been less-than-stellar, their average margin of victory on the winning streak is 15 points.
They’ve slipped above .500, sitting at 36-35. The Warriors? 36-34.
Uh-oh.
The lone good news here is that the Warriors have won both games against Houston, with just one remaining, meaning they’re guaranteed to have the tiebreaker. But if the teams continue on their current trajectories — the Rockets have won 11 of their last 12 games, while the Dubs have lost seven of their last 11 — even that might not matter.
Golden State is still the favorite to make the play-in — they have pole position, veteran experience, and a superstar on their side — but suddenly there’s a team breathing right down their neck. And when that happens, you don’t have the margin for error to screw around and lose close games — as they did on Sunday.