With a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament almost a certainty, the Golden State Warriors will look to improve their positioning down the stretch, beginning with a Friday date against the Washington Wizards in San Francisco.
Golden State (35-38) pulled out of a recent tailspin in which it dropped eight out of nine by winning its past two games, including a 109-106 home victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday. That contest opened a stretch in which the Warriors will play seven out of eight games at home, including the contest against Washington (17-55).
The Warriors can’t finish worse than their current position, 10th place in the Western Conference, the final play-in spot. They are 8 1/2 games behind the sixth-place Houston Rockets, who hold the last guaranteed playoff spot, with nine games to go.
With Golden State missing several key contributors, including two-time Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry, who has been sidelined by a knee injury since late January, coach Steve Kerr has relied on a rotating group of players to step up.
Among them is Gui Santos, who netted a career-high 31 points in the Wednesday win.
“He’s played a lot of minutes here the last month with all the injuries, and he continues to get better,” Kerr said of Santos, who is averaging 8.6 points per game but has scored 13 or more in 11 of the past 12 contests. “He’s really crafty. He’s finding ways to get to the rim.”
Golden State also continues to look to Brandin Podziemski as a leader of the perimeter attack, a unit that sustained another significant blow with wing Moses Moody rupturing his left patellar tendon in an overtime win against the Dallas Mavericks on Monday.
The Warriors also are getting more help from midseason acquisition Kristaps Porzingis. The big man started four of the past five games, and he posted 22 points and seven rebounds against Dallas, then 17 points and five boards vs. Brooklyn.
Porzingis went for 30 points, five rebounds, four assists and three blocks the last time the Warriors met the Wizards — a 125-117 Golden State win in Washington on March 16.
That defeat was part of the Wizards’ franchise-record-tying 16-game losing streak, which the Wizards ended on Wednesday with a 133-110 victory over the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City.
Jaden Hardy came off the bench to score 21 points for Washington, following a 25-point performance in the Wizards’ Sunday loss at New York. Meanwhile, rookie Julian Reese delivered another notable showing in his limited appearances with the Wizards this season, posting a career-high 26 points and pulling down 17 rebounds against the Jazz.
Reese, the brother of WNBA star Angel Reese, spent much of the season in the G League. In six games with Washington, he has averaged a double-double at 12 points and 10.7 rebounds per game.
Reese joined Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan as the only rookies in the past 40 years to grab 20 rebounds in one of their first five career games. He pulled down 20 against Utah on March 5.
“He’s just got an instinct to go get the ball, and he’s really good at it,” Washington coach Brian Keefe said of Reese.
“My rebounding has a lot to do with heart,” Reese said. “I’m not the tallest guy out there. I just try to find the angle and go get it … It just comes with a lot of consistent effort.”
The Friday visit to Golden State marks the third game in Washington’s five-game road trip. The Wizards are in the midst of playing seven out of eight away from home.
