The Golden State Warriors will get an opportunity to look up in the standings after having spent the past couple of weeks gazing back when they visit the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night.
The game is a rematch of a 104-100 Warriors’ home win on Tuesday that snapped Dallas’ seven-game winning streak.
This time, it’s Golden State (42-34) that has the lengthy run of wins — six straight — thanks to a 133-110 road romp over the Houston Rockets on Thursday.
The win just about assured the Warriors of no worse than a spot in the Western Conference play-in tournament as they dropped the Rockets four games behind with just six remaining in the battle for the 10th position. Having swept the season series, Golden State would earn the play-in spot should the teams finish the regular season in a tie.
Having lost six of nine at a point when the Rockets were catching fire, winning 11 in a row, the Warriors saw their lead trimmed to a half-game before going on their six-game spree while Houston was losing its last three.
The Warriors will take the court in Dallas just 1 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers (44-33), two back of the Sacramento Kings (44-32) and three in the rears of the New Orleans Pelicans (45-31) as the regular season embarks on its final 10 days.
Even with the second night of a tough back-to-back against a revenge-motivated opponent looming, Warriors veteran Klay Thompson put a positive spin on his team’s current situation after a fifth straight road win in Houston.
“Everyone knows their roles. We know what we’ve got to do to be successful,” Thompson said after a 29-point night. “Our young guys are playing great basketball. They’ve bought into the system.
“Above all, we’ve having fun. We’re trying to put on a show for our fans on the road. We’re trying to click at the right time, especially going into the playoffs.”
The aforementioned young guys came up big in Tuesday’s win over Dallas. Moses Moody contributed 12 points off the bench on a night when Thompson (14 points) and Stephen Curry (13) couldn’t hit their shots, and rookies Trayce Jackson-Davis and Brandin Podziemski chipped in with 10 rebounds apiece.
The Warriors were able to overcome a Luka Doncic triple-double and 27 points from Kyrie Irving, beating the Mavericks for the first time in three tries this season.
Dallas (46-30) regained its winning ways Thursday on the front end of its own back-to-back, getting a 25-point, 12-rebound double-double from Doncic and 26 points from Irving in a 109-95 home win over the Atlanta Hawks.
The Mavericks remain hopeful of catching the fourth-place Los Angeles Clippers (48-28) in the Western Conference race, thus earning a home-court series in the first round of the playoffs.
With three straight games at home while the Warriors will be enduring a second in a row on the road, the Mavericks aren’t offering any apologies. They felt they were on the unfortunate end of a tough schedule — a fifth straight on the road with games at Sacramento and Golden State sandwiching a trip to Houston — when they were beaten in San Francisco.
“I mean, I’m human just like the rest of my teammates,” Irving said. “So, 10 days on the road, definitely feeling it this last game. We wanted to get this one really bad, but we just didn’t do enough on the offensive end and defensive end.”
