I agree 100% with this
To recap the Warriors "journey," as Kerr calls it: The Warriors played Feb. 25 in Oakland; flew across the country for a game in Philadelphia on Feb. 27; flew overnight to Washington DC for a back-to-back on Feb. 28; jetted to Chicago for a Mar. 2 game; hopped on a flight back to the East Coast for a game at Madison Square garden on Mar. 5; flew down to Atlanta for a back-to-back on Mar. 6; jetted across the country to host the Celtics in Oakland before embarking on another back-to-back in Minnesota and San Antonio.
Article taken from BSPN. This all, to me, is being overplayed and exaggerated. Lets break this down...
The Warriors played Feb. 25 in Oakland; flew across the country for a game in Philadelphia on Feb. 27: Normal? You get a home game and then two days later you get a game vs scrubs at their place.
flew overnight to Washington DC for a back-to-back on Feb. 28: Good opponent on the second night of a b2b. Harder than average but still nothing out of the ordinary.
jetted to Chicago for a Mar. 2 game: A day between 2 games going against a mediocre Bulls team. Seems normal to me.
hopped on a flight back to the East Coast for a game at Madison Square garden on Mar. 5: 3 days later! You go "all the way back" to the east coast to play a very bad Knicks team... off 2 days of rest... seems normal.
flew down to Atlanta for a back-to-back on Mar. 6: Another good opponent on the second night of a b2b. The hawks aren't a super team but they're playoff worthy. Just like the first b2b, though, you're coming off a game against one of the worst teams in the NBA.
jetted across the country to host the Celtics in Oakland: Two days later you get a home game against the Celtics. Still don't see anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it's because they had to "jet across the country", lmfao.
before embarking on another back-to-back in Minnesota and San Antonio: Tough b2b playing against the Wolves, a team not seeded in the playoffs currently, and the Spurs, a very tough opponent in their own building on the second night of a b2b.
To state my own opinion on this, I believe this stretch of games to be above average when factoring travel + skill of opponent. However, this is not something that is crazy and out of the ordinary. The most notable things are the 3 playoff teams on the second night of a back to back but even with that, the Hawks and Wizards are far from the Spurs and Warriors. You face the 76ers on the first night before the Wizards and you face the Knicks before taking on the Hawks. Against both the Sixers and Knicks you shouldn't have to overplay your starters and be able to get them enough rest where going out the next night isn't a concern. I mean, , if you are that concerned rest a guy and your team (Warriors) still should be able to beat the Sixers and Knicks. The b2b with the Wolves and then Spurs is brutal because thats not an easy flight from Minny to San Antonio and the Spurs are cream of the crop along with the Cavs, Warriors, Rockets, and the Warriors themselves. Outside of that b2b, nothing else is something the Warriors haven't faced many times before.
I don't think this stretch of games warrants the level of complaints given from Iggy, Kerr, and the rest of their bunch, fans included. Calling the players of the NBA slaves
Don't let this post distract you from the fact that the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in the finals with home court advantage.
It's the same crap all the time. When one of the ESPN "darlings" faces any kind of adversity, they jump on any spin and excuse they can make for them and drag it on and on and on for days
This happens to anyone else, its completely ignored or "quit your ing" articles.
Meh, it's always a little tougher, travel-wise, for squads on the coasts, particularly the west coast. Not like the GSW organization is new to this, they just are looking for sympathy/a scapegoat when folks criticize them for sitting players.
Maybe if u rested during the trip, you would not have to sit out all your guys at once. Oops they have no depth so they can't rest anyone without losing but they lost anyways, so the moral of the story is that durant and. Curry are both fragile chuckers who probably have synched their menstrual periods by now.
Why rest vs San Antonio who was 1.5 GB at the time and not @Minny who you still may be able to beat without a star or two. A big gripe I have is why bite the hand that feeds you? NBA just saw a big e in revenue because of television, now the player got there money they want to hurt those ratings? Ignorance. Just on top of the fact the schedule wasn't even as bad as they are claiming.
You would never see this type of scheduling in the NHL, tbh..
Good post OP
I remember when ESPN came to the Spurs defense when they had to sleep on a plane the night before a playoff game against the Lakers in 08.
Oh, wait! They didn't...
Anyone remember a similar stretch for the Spurs?
I can't off the top of my head, but seems to me they have had some tough stretches.
Seems like there where a few rest days in there
On the other hand despite that recent fury of games they've played only 1 game more than the Spurs. Meaning before that it was pretty easygoing and now finish up with a relatively milder schedule. The Boston game was dumb schedule wise, but if they had ate that one (rested) they would have been better off.
The NBA is a ratings and they have a television schedule to deal with. They need to fill those time slots with games people actually want to watch. Unfortunately, that means adjusting their schedules to meet the demand of the networks. West coast teams feel it the most because every road game they play outside of the western seaboard mean playing in another time zone.
Also, the NHL starts the season 2 weeks in advance of the NBA so they have a lot more leeway in terms of scheduling.
Also, soldiers away from home for months at a time, getting paid and here a bunch of uneducated recipients of the genetic lottery complain about having to work every other day for 20 million a year.
This. The Warriors are ESPN's sweetheart team now (replacing the Cavs). Thus, ESPN is going to come up with excuses at every turn to defend the Warriors for any of their shortcomings.
The Spurs have had it way worse in years past.... remember December of 2014? How about December of 2012 when we almost beat the Heatles in Miami with literally nobody? Also, February of 2003 (a championship year) was just brutal... we went 8-1 on a RRT that concluded with back to back games in LAL and SAC, two top West teams at the time... LAL on Saturday night, and SAC on Sunday afternoon. We won them both.
It's not like they don't have chartered jets and are dropped off right onto their buses to the hotels. Travel is grueling, but as luxurious as possible for these guys.
The Spurs' rodeo road trips are fairly bad, but they use it to gel as a team, but the Warriors are fragile at core and they're crumbling.
Spurs just played 6 road games in 9 days for the first half of the RRT.
From March 1st to March 13, Spurs will be playing 8 games.
The thing that I'm trying to say is, while this stretch for GSW isn't easy, its not worthy of the criticism it's getting from the Warriors' team and fans.
Where's the link to the article?
ESPECIALLY when you know Kawhi is dealing with concussion protocol and was out for the next game. They obviously didn't know about Aldridge, but you 100% rest your starters against Minnesota and go for the jugular against the Spurs. Warriors take that game and they create a 2 game buffer in the loss column (assuming still lost to Minnesota) and have a chance to take the tiebreaker = Spurs would have to hope for four more Ws losses than them.
Bottom line, the Dubs are losing. Nothing else about this story interests me. 'em.
Plus the tie breaker w SA was on the line. You win that game and it's 1-1. Now if the end up with the same record, Spurs take the one seed.
And Killary lost because of the Russians![]()
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