NBA Standings watch: Warriors lurking in the West

Can they pull off a late season standings ascent?

Back in January after yet another heartbreaking loss for the Golden State Warriors, Dub Nation HQ ran a poll on whether the Bay Area’s basketball team would make the playoffs. 70% of the voters said, “No, this isn’t even a hard question.” 70%!

But somehow, someway these Dubs are showing some resilience. They’re solidifying themselves at the bottom of the playoff hunt with eyes on climbing out of their quagmire, winning 8 out of their last 10 games, three in a row.

The way things are shaking out right now, the Warriors are creating some separation between them and the two teams on their heels right now for the final spot in the play-in tournament. The Utah Jazz are 4 games behind them, while the Houston Rockets are 4.5 games back.

I know for many members of Dub Nation, this is a disgusting fall from the lofty regular season standards set during the majority of the Splash Bros era. This team used to sleep walk into top-3 seeds after shattering all known understandings of basketball greatness by winning 73 games in 2016.

Now they’re fighting for scraps at the bottom of the playoff standings, trying to find new ways to get the championship glory that departed from them last season.

But if you look at who is ahead of them in the standings, there’s plenty of room for optimism. To leapfrog the next couple spots and snatch a sixth seed is still very much in play, which would have them avoid the dastardly play-in tournament all together.

• Dallas Mavericks 33-23
• Sacramento Kings 32-23
• Phoenix Suns 33-24
• Los Angeles Lakers 31-27
• Golden State Warriors 29-26

The Dubs are merely 3 .5 games behind the Mavericks who are currently clinging ot that sixth seed. It’s also interesting that the Pacific Division is so stacked; three of the next four teams in GSW’s way are division rivals.