If you watched the Warriors' season-opening 141-122 loss to the Clippers on Thursday night, it might be hard to see this team reaching the NBA playoffs.
Forget about the NBA Finals. Just making the postseason will be tricky.
Steph Curry had a rough game, Draymond Green came out of the game banged up, the Warriors' shooting was off the mark and their defense had more holes than Swiss cheese.
But there still are believers out there. FS1's Nick Wright isn't quite ready to write off the Warriors after only one game.
"I know that a lot of people today are going to say the Warriors aren't going to make the playoffs," Wright said Friday on "First Things First." "The problem is, if you have them out, who is taking their place? It feels like we're all very confident there are six teams that are going to be in the Western Conference playoffs. Lakers, Clippers, Houston, Utah, Denver are, to me, five mortal locks, and Portland is very close to a mortal lock. So, there's six of them. Those other two remaining spots, I think the Warriors are getting one of them.
"I picked the Warriors to get one of them. Now, they're going to have to do it through Steph being special. And that was the most concerning part of last night. It was not their defense, because they're not going to give up 140 a night, but that's going to be a bottom-six, bottom-seven defense in all of basketball. The way to overcome that is Steph to be an MVP candidate, as we said he had the potential to be.
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"Steph playing that poorly and looking that overwhelmed at times, if that continues, then of course they won't make the playoffs. But in the NBA, if you have a top-five guy, you make the NBA playoffs if the guy is healthy through the year. That's why I'm still betting on the Warriors to make the tournament."
.@getnickwright still has the Warriors making the playoffs despite a 141-122 loss to the Clippers.
"They're going to have to do it with Steph being special. If you have a top 5 guy, you make the NBA playoffs if the guy stays healthy." - @getnickwright pic.twitter.com/3N9STAQvzt— First Things First (@FTFonFS1) October 25, 2019
After the Warriors reached the NBA Finals for five straight seasons, not even making the playoffs would be a major failure.
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While it might be tough to envision after watching that performance in the first regular-season game at Chase Center, we're with Wright here. After everything Curry has overcome in his career, it's hard to doubt his ability to rise up and drag this young Warriors team to the playoffs.
