The Warriors' play-in curse is *over*

The Warriors, who a few weeks ago looked reborn as legitimate championship contenders, almost let their nightmare finish to the regular season extend into the play-in. After racking up a 20-point lead against a Grizzlies team that looked ready to quit, Golden State slowly bled out until Memphis had caught up, only to need Stephen Curry to bail them out in the end.

Steph is almost always available to bail you out. You just probably don't want to start relying on that this early in the postseason if you have championship designs.

In any case, Golden State won in the play-in for the first time ever, beating Memphis 121-116 in a thriller. Curry finished with 37 (just brilliant down the stretch), Jimmy Butler had 38 (perfectly Jimmy) and the pair combined for 31 free throw attempts, eight more than Memphis had as a team. (Interesting wrinkle that came into focus during this game: the Warriors now have a star with one of the best whistles in the league – Butler – and one with the worst whistle – Curry.)

While the Warriors did get more free throws, the officiating overall was deeply favorable to the Grizzlies in the end game. The Last Two Minute report might as well be an apology letter to Brandin Podziemski (called for a foul on a clean transition block) and Kevon Looney (called for a foul for existing near Zach Edey, though Edey had free throws owed due to getting raked all night).

Edey actually played an inordinately large role, especially during Memphis' comeback. Tuomas Iisalo was searching for anything that'd work: Jaren Jackson Jr. struggled to get anything going other than kick-out threes, Desmond Bane started quietly before catching fire, Ja Morant had some great plays early but faced stiff resistance on the perimeter. By the third quarter, the Grizzlies were running high screens with Edey to get a switch ... and instead of having Morant or Bane work on the "big" (who was most often a small or power forward), they dumped it into Edey to work. He got swarmed often, had some turnovers, made some buckets, got no whistle respect. It was just ... a lot of Edey, who is a rookie in his first high-stakes NBA game. You would commend Iisalo for trusting him at this stage, but Iisalo is an NBA rookie, too! He might not know any better.

Morant also suffered a nasty ankle turn that looked like doom until Morant returned (it definitely still slowed him down in transition and forced Memphis into staying home on defense, which might have led to some open Golden State looks). It might be doom if Morant can't play on Friday: it looked real bad, and those can sometimes get worse after a night off of it. We'll see. Jackson simply has to do more on both ends: his rebounding is a huge problem when Edey isn't on the floor, his defense wasn't at all impactful and he only went 2/6 inside the arc against a tiny opponent.

Thanks in part to the refs, Memphis had a chance to tie the game with 5.4 seconds left. The only problem was ... uh, inbounding the ball after Iisalo drew up a play.

The struggle is real.

(Grizzlies: keep Iisalo, we have meme legend potential here.)

Memphis will be at the Grindhouse on Friday to host the winner of Kings-Mavericks. The Warriors get a few merciful days off before visiting the Gulf Coast to start their series with the Rockets. That will also be known as the series no referee wants to be assigned too. Refs might be calling in sick days to avoid that one.

And 1

Another DNP-CD for Jonathan Kuminga. It's beyond belief that he wouldn't have done more with the minutes Looney or Gui Santos received. But Steve Kerr and his staff clearly believe that; otherwise, he would have played.

Spinning forward, Kuminga played 19 minutes in the last regular season match-up against Houston and was a team-best +9 in the loss. If he doesn't play in Game 1 this weekend, this is going to be completely irreparable. It probably already is.

Golden State has restricted free agency rights, but Kuminga's camp might break new ground here in trying to get the Warriors to trade his rights or let him go. Meanwhile, Kuminga is the second youngest player on the roster and one of the team's best paths to improvement, internal or via trade. Poisoning the well seems like a misstep.

Iced Trae

To use the parlance of our youth, Trae Young crashed out of the Hawks' 120-95 play-in loss to the Magic on Tuesday.

Cole Anthony and Anthony Black got hot to put Trae on tilt, Trae started ("started") foul-hunting and not getting calls, the game had fallen out of reach, so he nutmegged Wendell Carter Jr. (cool), threw the ball hard at the ref to pick up Tech No. 1 (not cool), kicked the ball away from the ref setting up for the free throw for Tech No. 2 and the ejection (not cool) and played keep-away with the ref on his way off the floor (not cool). He's going to get a fat fine and deserve it. David Stern might have hit him with a cartoonishly large hammer after all that.

This is a big distraction from the fact that Cole Anthony and Anthony Black got hot. Atlanta was within a possession in the late third before the Magic opened up (for them) holy hell in the fourth. C. Anthony had 13 in the fourth alone, and Anthony B. was 6/7 from the floor all night, including 3/3 from deep. Atlanta's offense couldn't get buzzing against a stout Orlando defense. Consider this: the Magic shot 11/39 from deep (28%) ... and damn near hit three times as many threes as the Hawks (4/21 from deep, 19%).

So that's the recipe for winning a game in which neither Paolo Bancher or Franz Wagner are particularly electric: lockdown defense, heaters from a couple reserves and, uh, face the Hawks. Unfortunately, the Magic will not be facing the Hawks in the playoffs, now that they've made it. They'll be facing the reigning champion Boston Celtics. Good luck.

Atlanta will go home to face the winner of Bulls vs. Heat.

Links

The EDSBS Charity Bowl is on! Great cause to help resettle and support refugees, organized by some great people.

Paul Flannery on going into the abyss with Joe Mazzulla.

Nico Harrison held court with some Dallas media and apparently said some amazing things like:

That 116-105 home win over the Houston Rockets – when fans held a large pregame protest outside the American Airlines Center – was the only time that Irving and Davis have played together for the Mavs. Davis had 26 points, 16 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 blocks in 31 minutes before suffering his injury.

"That's a championship-caliber team, and you guys were able to see it for 2½ quarters," Harrison said. "Unfortunately, it's a small sample size, but that is fairly a dominant defensive team.

Why was it a small sample size, Nico? WHY WAS IT A SMALL SAMPLE SIZE?

Ryan Nanni with a delightful survey of NBA triple-doubles which don't include either 10 rebounds or 10 assists and in one infamous case GMIB readers remember, 10 points.

Dan Devine's awards ballot.

Dame Lillard is making progress but isn't ready yet.

Katie Heindl on Nikola Jokic's quotes around "waking up the beast."

Howard Beck says goodbye to an angst-ridden NBA season.

Marc Campbell on the best defenders in the league this season.

Adam Taylor with five lessons from the Celtics' regular season.

Marc Stein's final power rankings of the regular season.

Schedule

It's Single Elimination Night in the Play-in Tournament. Lose and go home. Win and live to fight another night.

Heat at Bulls, 7:30 ET, ESPN

Mavericks at Kings, 10 ET, ESPN

Alright, that's Wednesday. Be excellent to each other.