Naptime for the Warriors

Golden State's season comes to a premature end. PLUS: Jalen Brunson literally isn't enough.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Sleep And His Half-Brother Death; John William Waterhouse; 1874

Capping off a weird, uneven season following a championship run, the Golden State Warriors have actually lost a playoff series before the NBA Finals, something that hadn’t happened since Mark Jackson was still the head coach. Here are a few of the players on the last Warriors’ team that lost in the first, second or third round of the playoffs:

• Jermaine O’Neal

• Hilton Armstrong

• Jordan Crawford

• Steve Blake

• Toney Douglas

• Nemanja Nedovic

In the end, this Warriors season ended up being closer to the 2020-21 season — in which the Lakers Grizzlies eliminated Golden State in the play-in tournament — than the 2021-22 season. The post-Durant Two Timelines era of the Warriors now features one tank season, one lottery season, one final-8 season and one championship. Quite a weird ride.

And honestly, not terribly dissimilar from what the Lakers have done in the LeBron era (two lottery seasons, one first round exit, one championship and now one TBD conference finals season). LeBron and Steph Curry are walking similar paths at this point: reliant on help that is sometimes not really there.

LeBron’s help showed up more frequently in this series than did Steph’s, starting with Anthony Davis in the middle. AD didn’t get a ton of shots in Game 6 Friday night, but he set the tone overall by drawing fouls (11 free throws), vacuuming rebounds (20 in 40 minutes) and playing a superb defensive game (2 blocks, 2 steals, 3 fouls).

LeBron had a stirringly LeBronian game, something that honestly hasn’t happened very much in these two series wins: 30 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists and complete tempo and momentum control of the game. LeBron has had much better playoff games before, but this was the purest essence of LeBronian play we’ve seen maybe all season.

And then you have Austin Reaves, one of the best bargain finds by any NBA front office in the last three years, outscoring every single Warrior not named Steph.

That play at the end of the second quarter — AD gets a block, Reaves hit the halfcourt shot over an essentially invisible Jordan Poole …

… is just a total backbreaker.

Reaves had 23-5-6 on 7/12 shooting as the third most productive Warrior. Meanwhile, Klay Thompson goes 3/19, a banged-up Andrew Wiggins goes 2/8, Poole goes 3/10. Donte DiVincenzo was the only Warrior other than Steph (who had 32 on subpar shooting) to get into double figures. Draymond Green gave very little on offense (9 points and 3 assists) and got himself into foul trouble, limiting his minutes and defensive impact.

So the question becomes where the Warriors go from here?