65/82 L Dallas Mavericks 99-109
66/82 W Los Angeles Lakers 128-121
67/82 L New York Knicks 112-119
68/82 W Memphis Grizzlies 137-116
Warriors Record: 36-32
Wizards Record: 12-58 – the Wizards won a game! And not just any game - they beat the Kings!
Here’s the state of the Warriors, with 14 games to go
Steph looks and sounds tired, not of playing basketball, but of having this discussion - why are the Warriors so mediocre? Why can’t they win at home (but for real, why is their record at home such trash?) Why can’t they lock in for several games in a row?
This year might be pretty simple - against good teams, especially teams that can defend, like the Knicks, the Warriors have no answers. Against teams that are not good, the Warriors look amazing, like they did against the Grizzlies, who are plagued with injuries and are playing a lot of G-League players.
It was a breakout night for Jonathan Kuminga, who has been the bright spot of the Warriors season.
It wasn’t only dunks, he was sinking 3s and midrange jumpers and playing excellent defense. The Dubs look great against a lot of teams - just not against the teams they need to beat. And that’s the way it’s gonna be.
As the season closes out, Kevon Looney and Dario Šarić are totally out of the rotation, playing only in garbage minutes. It is not lost on me that these two were the players who were coached by Deki Milojević, who died of a heart attack in January. Their performance has been dramatically different in the second half of the season. Looney said that the best part of his career was when Deki coached him, and Šarić went from a breakout star to unplayable. It serves as a reminder that this team has had, is working through, a profound tragedy.
Last night the game did have garbage minutes, which saw the first NBA minutes for Pat Spencer and his first NBA points.
Who’s Pat Spencer, you ask? He’s been with the Sea Dubs, the Warriors G League team, for the past two seasons and was recently converted to a two way contract. Spencer was a college lacrosse star, with the record for most assists and was the national player of the year. After 4 years at Loyola, he went to Northwestern as a grad transfer and played college basketball for the first time then went to the G League and now the NBA. The story gets even better.
Pat Spencer’s little brother is….Cam Spencer, the senior grad school transfer for the #1 UConn Huskies. This week one brother gets his first points in the NBA, and the other brother starts his NCAA title hopes.
The NBA is filled with connections from high school, from college, from AAU, from other NBA teams, from marriage (the Steph/Seth/Damion Lee/Austin Rivers/Doc Rivers connection).
But last night was one I’ve never seen before. In his post game press conference, when asked what stood out to him, Chris Paul said
GG Jackson is the youngest player in the NBA and Chris Paul is the second oldest after LeBron, but still…CP was his coach? two years ago?
But let’s set the NBA aside for a bit because it’s March Madness. Some people dream of clear blue oceans and beaches, some look forward to ski weekends, but for me it’s March Madness and in particular this first weekend. Basketball from 9 am to 10 pm for four consecutive days. The upsets, the comebacks, the as-yet-unknown Cinderella teams.
I won both my brackets last year, which was a first. So what is my bracket strategy this year?
Undying loyalty - go UConn!, belief in Michigan State despite their current record and past experience, never picking Duke, not picking Hunter Dickinson, not picking teams with players with (known to me) sexual assault charges, and when in doubt, picking the school that is the college of an NBA player I know (i.e. Texas - Kevin Durant, SDSU - Kawhi Leonard, etc).
It’s a haphazard blend of resentment and loyalty, as most things are, but since I didn’t watch many games this year, that’s all I have to go on.
And anyway, this year the women’s tournament has more appeal and just might be more entertaining. Last year the women’s final had a larger audience than the men’s final for the first time. That’s going to happen again this year. Because for real - outside of a college team you root for - name a men’s player from three different teams - I dare you. But three women’s players is easy - Paige Bueckers at UConn, Cameron Brink at Stanford, Caitlin Clark at Iowa, Angel Reese at LSU, JuJu Watkins at USC and that’s without naming a single player at South Carolina, the defending champs and top seed. The women’s game has more stars and more rivalries, in part because the players tend to stay on college teams and we get to know them over time. Did you know that the women’s tournament was only allowed to be called March Madness since 2022? Hopefully this year is a tipping point for the resources to flow in for the college women’s game to get what they deserve.
All of this creates a problem for lil ole me - it’s a dangerous time of year for my resolution because with so much basketball on, it’s easy to miss a Wizards or Warriors game. And there are more games this year in the women’s tournament that I want to watch. It’s the problem of too much ice cream. Right now I’m thrilled. Cause today I watched basketball and thought basketball and wrote about basketball and then when I wake up tomorrow I get to do it again. I know that sometime around Sunday afternoon I will be forcing myself to watch games “this only happens once a year, Elizabeth, don’t take a nap, don’t watch a New Girl rerun, must. watch. basketball”. But right up until the moment it becomes too much, it’s going to be exactly as it should be.
The Timeout Books: (books I read during the timeouts and halftimes)
A Game At A Time Playlist (the songs that pop in my head while writing this)