The Golden State Warriors won an important game on Tuesday night against a major Western Conference rival in the Memphis Grizzlies.
In doing so, the Warriors jumped the Grizzlies in the standings, grabbing the fifth-seed and putting themselves further from the dreaded Play-In Tournament. Usually, when your team has a huge road win against a rival, it means all good things.
However, the Warriors' win over Memphis puts them in a precarious position. If the 2025 NBA playoffs started today, the Warriors would now, as the fifth-seed, play the Los Angeles Lakers. As the sixth-seed, they were set to face the Denver Nuggets.
It may not seem like much of a difference. Both the Lakers and Nuggets will be difficult playoff opponents, and the Warriors are going to have to beat teams like that if they want to get Stephen Curry his fifth championship ring. Still, being in the four-five playoff position rather than the sixth could come with some disadvantages.
First of all, having a first-round series against the Lakers would be tough. The Warriors have already lost to the Lakers in the playoffs and Play-In Tournament in recent years, and now the pacific rival are revamped with Luka Doncic on the roster. The pairing of him and LeBron James is enough to make any team nervous for a playoff series, including Golden State wouldn't be overly thrilled by such a proposition.
Another reason the sixth-seed provides slightly more safety than the fifth is that whoever wins the four-five matchup will likely have to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second-round. The Thunder are the favorites to come out of the West, and the longer the Warriors can last without facing them, the better.
The best seed for Golden State to enter the playoffs with would be the seventh-seed. The second-seed Houston Rockets are the least experienced team in the West playoff race, and the veteran Warriors would love to face a team like them in the first-round. That side of the bracket also gets to avoid OKC in the second-round.
The problem is that the Golden State don’t want to leave anything up to chance. Finishing as the seventh-seed means having to participate in the Play-In Tournament. As the Warriors have found out before, a bad game or two there could end your season early. For that reason alone, falling to seventh is simply too risky.
So, the Warriors have to play the end of the season straight up. They can’t risk falling to the Play-In Tournament, and trying to choose your opponent for the playoffs can always backfire. Even though the win against Memphis could bring them a more difficult path in the playoffs, the Warriors need to keep beating who is in front of them and attempting to climb the standings as much as possible.