Obviously every NBA team is going to face some scheduling adversity this season.
To help us sort out just how brutal the schedule is to some teams, Tom Ziller has polled the SB Nation NBA network to get people's takes on the most brutal stretch of their team's lockout-compressed schedule.
Overall, when you compare the Golden State Warriors' most brutal stretch(es) in the schedule to the hand that other teams have been dealt, it's not that bad.
There are obviously lots of "brutal" stretches that you could pick for any given team (and please note: this poll was taken in the days immediately after the schedule was released, meaning that no free agent transactions or trades had taken place yet), but for the Golden State Warriors the most brutal stretches probably have to do more with travel itineraries than strength of opponents:
- There's an extended rough patch of 11 games from March 21 (at New Orleans) - April 4 (at Minnesota).
- They finish the season with their three games in three nights stretch from April 20-22 (at Dallas - at Houston - at Minnesota).
| Brutal Stretch 1 | Brutal Stretch 2 |
|
Wed 21 @ New Orleans 5:00pm |
Wed 18 vs LA Lakers 7:30pm Fri 20 @ Dallas 5:30pm Sat 21 @ Houston 5:00pm Sun 22 @ Minnesota 4:00pm Tue 24 vs New Orleans 7:30pm Thu 26 vs San Antonio 7:30pm |
Granted, there is one stretch missing from this list: from February 22 through March 13, the Warriors play 8 of 10 games on the road with the home respite being games against Memphis and Dallas. But with a 6-day (February 22-28) and 3-day (March 7-10) break in there and a few of those games being against less than elite opponents, that stretch almost has to be considered a "rest" relative to the rest of the schedule.
For the complete list of "the most brutal schedule quirks in the NBA", visit Ziller's article at SB Nation.com.