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To put whatever just happened into words is fun. Games like this happen in an 82-game span that boggle the mind. Your team is obviously superior but comes out playing as if the other team is collectively missing an arm, turning the ball over, rotating late on the baseline, and ultimately goofing around until something causes tangible panic. The panic happened when T.J Warren started abusing David Lee and Andre Iguodala in the paint, when Eric Bledsoe started drilling step-back threes, and the offense where Stephen Curry launches askew threes came up empty in two possessions. So, of course, in what is unfolding as the greatest Golden State Warriors season of all time, something out of a fairy tale decides to re-animate itself into the present day.
Harrison Barnes later admitted in the locker room that he did mess up rotations and even took a chance at a shot at the rim when Stephen Curry was open in the corner. The mistakes weren't a result of a Barnes that was invisible or lackadaisical. These were errors in judgement only in terms of aggressiveness and the ensuing result. He forgot to switch onto the trailer on a screen because he was busy sticking to his man. The shot was even more un-Harrison Barnes-esque. The one people callously despise would have calmly and cautiously passed the ball back out for a new possession and play. Instead, he forced up a contested layup that ultimately led to an open Klay Thompson (astonishingly) passing it to an even more open Stephen Curry.
So as the last play of the game winded down, and as Curry tripped on a cut out to the three-point line, Barnes streaked towards the ball in a non-passive manner. An awkward two dribbles and a stumble later, it allowed the national audience to realize that, yeah, these Warriors might not lose much at Oracle Arena this postseason.
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The game itself was one the sloppier ones this season. Leandro Barbosa airballed, Curry forced entry passes that were nowhere near any Warrior, Marreese Speights missed layups that were usually dunks, and Curry did the salsa (wait that's awesome).
There are times when teams of destinies are talked about and anointed. I'm nearly a thousand percent certain that the Houston Rockets feel this way. The Atlanta Hawks are in the midst of their own dream season. The San Antonio Spurs are preserving and are always assuredly living in a dream world. But these Golden State Warriors feel, in the most biased manner, like a team perfectly fitted for a Harrison Barnes game-winner against the Phoenix Suns at home in an early April affair.
Anything that can happen in the worst possible manner will end up in the best plausible outcome. There hasn't been much bad news, because those tend to not linger long when the rebounding of such events result in ridiculous moments. Andrew Bogut went down for an extended period of time and Draymond Green became a top rim protector in the league. The Warriors lose two games and win the next 16. Stephen Curry hits a low points in three-point shooting in the first half and is now setting fire upon those that dare question the very essence of his existence.
A team of destiny is universally used to describe nearly all championship teams. It's the revisionist history that everyone can get behind, erasing the bad and replacing it with moments of Barnes stumbling askew into the painted area and watching the basketball bounce at the rim three times before feathering in. Destiny is reserved for the fateful, coined for the teams that have everything go their way seemingly without question or obstacles. The Warriors have yet to face real obstacles. Maybe they will, and ridiculously, perhaps they will not.
Destiny is fickle, applicable, and purely relative to something as meaningless as sports. Then there are these Golden State Warriors.
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The Golden State Warriors travel to Dallas to take on the Mavericks on Saturday April 4 at 5:30 PST .