Preview: Warriors travel to OKC to take on Thunder without Wiggins

The Western Conference standings are pretty tight, with the Golden State Warriors clinging to a fifth seed with a record of 34-31. Their opponent tonight, the allegedly tanking Oklahoma City Thunder, are only 3.5 games behind them despite being in the 13th spot in the conference.

With only 17 games remaining on the schedule for the Dubs, this is an important time to solidify their place in the playoffs. Otherwise, another mini slump in a season full of them could lead to disaster.

Golden State Warriors at Oklahoma City Thunder

March 7th, 2023 | 5:00 PM PT

Watch: NBC Sports Bay Area | Listen: 95.7 The Game

The Dubs are coming off of a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, yet another road defeat in a season that’s been marred by them. Golden State has a record of 7-24 away from the friendly confines of Chase Center, which is absolutely terrible. But their road woes havent kept them out of the playoff hunt, so any game that they start to string together some wins in enemy territory could be supremely beneficial to raising their seeding.

Meanwhile Golden State’s max contract All-Star Andrew Wiggins has missed three weeks of time dealing with an undisclosed private matter. His coach Steve Ker and teammate Jordan Poole spoke on his absence:

All of us in Dub Nation are hoping that Wiggins makes it through whatever it is that he’s dealing with because A.) We care about him as a human being and B.) The Warriors desperately need his combination of stingy defense and opportunistic offense to keep them in title contention.

The Thunder are coming off back-to-back wins over the Utah Jazz, with their most recent victory a 129-119 track meet.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was particular dominant in that contest, racking up 38 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals. Thankfully the Warriors have the emerging defensive stopper Jonathan Kuminga who noticeably made SGA work extremely hard for any daylight in their last meeting.