Golden State Warriors: Playoff seeding offers the break the Warriors need

The NBA regular season ended on Wednesday night, and the seeding could be the break the Golden State Warriors need in a season riddled with injuries.

The 2017-2018 NBA regular season concluded on Wednesday night, and the Golden State Warriors should be pretty relieved about how the postseason bracket turned out.

The Western Conference playoff seeding are as follows:

Houston Rockets (65-17)
Golden State Warriors (58-24)
Portland Trail Blazers (49-33)
Oklahoma City Thunder (48-34)
Utah Jazz (48-34)
New Orleans Pelicans (48-34)
San Antonio Spurs (47-35)
Minnesota Timberwolves (47-35)

Earlier on Wednesday night, Minnesota Timberwolves vanquished the Denver Nuggets from playoff contention with an overtime win. The win for Minnesota gave San Antonio the seventh seed, which is who the Warriors will play in the first round.

Now, the Warriors, who will presumably be without two-time MVP Stephen Curry with a left MCL sprain (although his most recent Instagram post might say otherwise) will face a battered Spurs team without their best player in Kawhi Leonard.

If the Warriors are able to make it past the Spurs without much of a problem, the Warriors would face the winner of the Blazers-Pelicans series in the second round. Presumably if Curry does come back at the beginning of the second round or part way through it, his presence would boost the chances of the team making another deep postseason run.

In the regular season series against San Antonio, the Warriors went 3-1, with Curry playing three out of the four games, but only averaging 13.3 ppg. His last game against the Spurs did not go well as he only scored two points and tweaked his ankle.

Say, the Blazers push their way past the Pelicans, it would set up a Warriors-Blazers playoff series for the third consecutive postseason. However, the Blazers are better than last year with Oakland native Damian Lillard playing at an MVP-level and Jusuf Nurkic finally healthy after an injury-riddled playoffs last year.

Golden State lost two out of three to Portland during the regular season. Curry did not play in two of those games. The other three all-stars, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green played in all of the games.

Let’s take a quick look at the other side of the Western Conference bracket.

The Houston Rockets, the team most equipped to take down the defending champs have a much difficult road to get to the Conference Finals, and even the NBA Finals.

Houston, which is the no. 1 seed, will have to go through the eighth-seeded Pelicans, then either the Thunder or the Jazz to get to the Western Conference Finals.

The Rockets won all four regular season games against their first round opponent. Presuming Houston beats the Timberwolves in the first round, they would have to face either the Thunder or the Jazz.

Against Oklahoma City, the Rockets won one out of the three regular season meetings and the last game they played provided a possible preview of what could come in the second round. Two teams with contrasting styles and it would benefit the Warriors a bunch to have to play only one of those teams in their quest to repeat as champions.

The Rockets against the Jazz in the regular season was a much different story. They won the series 4-0 over Utah scoring 116.3 ppg. This doesn’t translate to postseason success as coaches have more time to gameplan and make the necessary adjustments.

Almost all of this magically works in the Warriors favor as they got the relatively easier path to the Conference Finals and possibly another trip to the NBA Finals compared to the Rockets road to a possible Finals appearance.

What the playoff seeding really does for Golden State is give time for players such as Curry, Andre Iguodala and Pat McCaw to heal from various injuries and get them healthy to defend their throne. Additionally, it gives the team motivation to play at a high level until the other players are fully healthy.

Next: Warriors NBA Playoffs Gift Guide

In a season riddled with injuries, the playoff seeding might just be the lucky break the Warriors need to get back to the Finals for a fourth consecutive time and win back-to-back championships. Only time will tell.

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