The Golden State Warriors helped their own playoff cause significantly on Tuesday night, outlasting the Dallas Mavericks 104-100 at home.
It wasn’t a banner game for superstar guard Stephen Curry, who finished with 13 points on 5-of-18 shooting, plus seven assists and seven rebounds, but several other Dubs players stepped up in their fifth consecutive win.
Andrew Wiggins led Golden State with 23 points, while Draymond Green had 11 points, eight rebounds, six assists and four steals, and both Chris Paul and Moses Moody scored in double figures off the bench.
Mavericks superstar guard and NBA MVP candidate Luka Dončić went off for 30 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists in what was his 20th triple-double of the season, but Golden State otherwise played strong defense, holding the Mavs to 43.8 percent shooting, forcing 15 turnovers and winning the rebounding battle 52-42.
With Golden State snapping Dallas’ seven-game winning streak, fans took to X to hype up the Warriors’ playoff chances and the fact that they are hitting their stride at the right time:
By virtue of their win, the Dubs improved to 41-34 on the season, extending their lead over the Houston Rockets for the 10th seed in the Western Conference to three games with seven left to play.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, they didn’t make much headway in the standings otherwise since the seventh-place Sacramento Kings and ninth-place Los Angeles Lakers both won Tuesday.
As of now, it seems likely that the Warriors’ path to the playoffs will have to go through the postseason play-in tournament, as they are four games out of the all-important sixth seed.
Even if the Warriors do have to compete in the play-in, they remain a threat to reach the playoffs and potentially go the distance.
Curry, Green and Klay Thompson have all helped the Warriors win four championships, giving them the type of experience that makes a huge difference come playoff time.
Also, the Dubs are playing their best basketball as of late, having won 20 of their past 29 games and five in a row.
Warriors play this type of defense, they’ll find themselves in a playoff series
— Gautam Ratnam (@GautamRatnamNBA) April 3, 2024
As for the Mavs, Tuesday was a tough loss, but they are still fifth in the West, and they control their own destiny in terms of reaching the playoffs and avoiding the play-in.
However, they only hold a one-game lead over the seventh-place Kings and eighth-place Phoenix Suns, so they can ill afford to allow the loss to Golden State to turn into a losing streak.
