Veteran Golden State Warriors ‘flying’ towards West play-in against the Memphis Grizzlies

LOS ANGELES – The Golden State Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler at the National Basketball Association (NBA) trade deadline in an attempt to land a top-six Western Conference play-off berth.

Butler made the appropriate impact, but Golden State fell short of their goal and were relegated to the play-in tournament. The seventh-seeded Warriors now take the hard path into the post-season and face the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies on April 15 (April 16, Singapore time) in San Francisco.

The winners of that contest will earn the No. 7 play-off spot in the West and play the No. 2 Houston Rockets in the first round.

The Warriors went 23-7 in games played by Butler following the deal to obtain him from the Miami Heat.

Even all that success could not get Golden State an automatic berth. The Warriors (48-34) fell one game short of the No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves.

Golden State also missed out on a chance to rest and refuel by having to play the Grizzlies (48-34) and possibly a second game in the play-in portion of the festivities.

Veteran forward Draymond Green made it clear that is a non-issue.

“We’ll be fine,” Green told reporters after the 124-119 overtime home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on April 13 pushed Golden State into the play-in round.

“Play-offs, you’re playing no back-to-backs or anything like that, so just got to get there. We’ll be alright. We’re not senior citizens. We’re high-level basketball players... We’ve been training all year for this. No disrespect to the senior citizens, by the way. We love our senior citizens.”

Still, the Warriors are relying on 37-year-old Stephen Curry, the 35-year-old Butler and the 35-year-old Green to make a post-season run.

After clashing with seemingly everyone at the Miami Heat organisation, Butler fit in well with Golden State and averaged 17.9 points, 5.9 assists and 5.5 rebounds.

Curry certainly is not showing his age after team-best averages of 24.5 points and 6.0 assists. He made 311 three-pointers to top 300 for the sixth time in his career. Only four other players have made 300 in a single season.

One major concern is that the Warriors were outrebounded 42-25 by the Clippers and collected just three offensive boards. Now they face a tenacious Memphis squad that fiercely crashes the boards.

“When we do get rebounds, you see us flying in transition,” Curry said. “Anybody who grabs a rebound and (throws an) outlet pass, we have confidence that everybody can run, and we got spacing. That’s usually our best offence.

“So even with Memphis, they’re a bigger team, but you can kind of get them in transition, if you can secure rebounds and those 50-50 balls. That’ll probably be a good test or a marker if we can win that game.”

The Grizzlies fired coach Taylor Jenkins with nine games left this season and have gone 4-5 under interim coach Tuomas Iisalo.

Memphis lost their first three games after the change, before winning four of their final six.

The Grizzlies rolled to a 132-97 home victory over the Dallas Mavericks in the finale on April 13. Lamar Stevens led the way with a career-best 31 points.

Stevens said Memphis are ready to go despite many observers thinking they face a hard road after the dismissal of Jenkins.

“I’m excited for the opportunity,” Stevens said. “Regardless of who we were going to play, I think that we got a big chip on our shoulder with something to prove.

“I think a lot of people are counting us out, so we’re just excited to go there and play our game.”

The Warriors went 3-1 against the Grizzlies this season with the victories occurring by five, eight and nine points. Curry scored 52 points in the 134-125 win on April 1, which was the lone game of the season series when Butler participated.

Memphis also steamrolled the visiting Golden State 144-93 on Dec 19 when they made a franchise record 27 three-pointers. REUTERS