The NBA regular season is now in the books, fully, and our Sunday Surmising from last week looks bad now. The Golden State Warriors choked away three games in their final five to finish with just 48 victories—and the No. 7 slot in the Western Conference. Now the team that has won four NBA titles in the last seasons has a hard road to a potential fifth title, starting with a home play-in game against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Somehow, the Warriors finished just 24-17 at home this year, even though they did win three of four against the Grizzlies during the regular season. But the extra game just adds more pressure while taking away more energy from an aging Golden State roster, that’s for sure. How did the team end up here? Well, losses at home to Houston, San Antonio, and the Los Angeles Clippers dropped the Warriors in the tight standings.

How did the mighty Golden State franchise drop its final three homes games? Good question. Here you go:

  • Against Houston, Warriors star guard Stephen Curry scored just three points on 1-for-10 shooting. That doesn’t happen often, of course, when when it does, the Golden State roster is kind of dead in the water. Four other players scored at least 13 points each, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Rockets.
  • Against San Antonio, the Dubs were burned by a former first-round pick of theirs, Harrison Barnes, who they let go years ago after losing in the 2016 NBA Finals unexpectedly. He has carved out a decent career since then, but on this Spurs team, he was just playing for revenge. And somehow, he got it.
    • The Warriors couldn’t put two good quarters together, winning the first and third by a combined 25 points, but losing the second and fourth by an aggregate 28 points. This was just inexcusable for the home team to blow this game against one of the worst teams in the Western Conference.
  • Against L.A. today? Well … inconsistency again hurt in an overtime loss that never needed to get that far. Golden State led by eight points after the first, but then the team had to fight in the second half just to get to OT. In regulation, the Dubs had the ball with 32 seconds left in a tie game but didn’t score.

So, just like that, a 48-34 regular season means a toss-up game in the play-in tournament against a younger team—the same Memphis organization that eliminated the Warriors from 2021 postseason in the play-in tournament … in overtime. That was a long time ago, but we suspect the Golden State front office and fans will remember it. And after all the team has been through this year, that would be a sour way to exit now.

Tuesday night at the Chase Center will be interesting, that’s for sure.