Warriors at Mavericks - back to work

There’s plenty of intrigue in the NBA tonight, with 12 games on the schedule. I won’t blame you if you flip back and forth between the Warriors/Mavericks game and the Eastern Conference showdown between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics.

But fair warning: I’m not sure how many more times we will get a chance to see Dirk Nowitzki play against us, so this could be a game you should watch (if you were on the fence for some reason).

For the Warriors, they are going to be at something close to full strength - but by no means all the way healthy. We are still going to be operating without a couple of significant bench players in Omri Casspi (back) and Andre Iguodala (back and neck hip).

Wait, that Iguodala injury report looks fishy. I thought it was his knee that was troubling him. Wait, the Warriors wouldn’t. Would they?...no, the Warriors wouldn’t make a joke out of something like this, would they?)

Meanwhile, it looks like Draymond Green’s rolled ankle wasn’t too bad!

Still, the Warriors are probably going to be keeping a close eye on everyone’s minutes, with a back-to-back against the Houston Rockets looming tomorrow night.

As the boys discussed in their podcast today, the Mavericks are on something of a hot streak. Harrison Barnes hasn’t historically had much success against his old team, but the Mavs have a puncher’s chance. Remember that our defense dropped significantly with the return of Steph Curry, so if we get lazy, or the Mavs have an excellent shooting night, it could get real interesting, real quick.

With James Harden out for a couple of weeks with a minor hamstring injury, this is an ideal time for the Warriors to separate themselves and build some cushion for the ever-important #1 seed in the playoffs. We are nearly halfway done with the season, so it really is about time to start caring about our positioning on the playoff tree.

Let’s Go Warriors!

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