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Warriors building nice supporting cast, but Steph Curry holds key to NBA playoff fate
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- Warriors building nice supporting cast, but Steph Curry holds key to NBA playoff fate
SAN FRANCISCO — Gui Santos already has an idea of what the financial security from the $15 million extension he signed Saturday means for him — and his fiancee.
"Now I can get some more Guis," the 23-year-old wing said while grinning after the Warriors ' lopsided loss to the Lakers .
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That was the news Santos' parents thought their son was calling about when he phoned them back in Brazil after putting pen to paper on a new three-year contract with Golden State and told them he had "something serious" to talk about.
"They thought that I got my fiancee pregnant," Santos said with a laugh.
Gui Santos drives to the basket against the Lakers. AP
While family planning can wait another day, the Warriors don't enjoy the same luxury after falling further in the Western Conference standings after the 129-101 loss to the sixth-seeded Lakers.
Santos' 14 points were enough to lead the way for a Golden State squad playing without Steph Curry , Jimmy Butler and Kristaps Porzingis . Rookie guard Will Richard left in the second quarter, too, after rolling his right ankle. The defeat all but sealed the Warriors' fate as a play-in team.
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Now 4.5 games back of the Lakers, coach Steve Kerr acknowledged afterward, "that's a lot to make up in 22 games." It's not something the Warriors are even talking about.
"It's not anything worth discussing," Kerr said, "because we just have to go out and try to win and see what happens."
Like everything else in Golden State's orbit, the Warriors' fate rests more on the health of Curry than their playoff seeding. The 37-year-old missed his 10th consecutive game with an overuse injury commonly known as runner's knee and told ESPN's Malika Andrews during the game that he expected it was "going to be a little longer" before he is cleared to play again.
Stephen and Seth Curry on the Warriors' bench. NBAE via Getty Images
Santos scored in double figures for the 12th time in the Warriors' past 13 games. Moses Moody , 23 and also locked up through 2027-28, was one of three others in double figures with 12. Brandin Podziemski , also 23, was held to nine, snapping a streak of seven straight games scoring 10 or more.
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It's a nice, homegrown supporting cast.
But the group still has a long way to go to carry the torch from a dynasty that produced four NBA championships. As Moody noted afterward, the Warriors had to contend with LeBron James , Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves .
Draymond Green , 35, was their only "superstar" left on the floor. He was a minus-30 in 24 minutes, the second time in his past three games Green has been Golden State's worst player by plus-minus.
"We're building, just like any other young team in the NBA," Moody said. "That's kind of the feel of the locker room and the team right now."
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What young teams lack in talent they typically make up for with moxie. But Kerr's team showed none against an opponent directly in front of it in the standings, at home, in prime time.
"For us to win right now, it's got to be about energy, winning extra possessions, crashing (the boards), forcing turnovers," Kerr said. "We just fell behind like that."
There was little reason to tune in more than six minutes into the game. Golden State was already down by 17. Green slammed home a feed from Moody for the first basket of the game, and the Warriors went on to miss their next nine field goals.
Defensively, the Lakers' Big 3 picked them apart at will.
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"We have to come out with some pop and some energy at that end of the floor," Kerr said. "It just didn't feel like we were as engaged defensively as we needed to be."
Santos was a spark plug even before becoming a regular in the starting lineup about a month ago. The bubbly Brazilian was asked how the Warriors could lack energy with him on the floor.
"I would not say the energy, but our effort on defense," he said. "When you've got to guard Luka, LeBron — these guys are really tough to guard. When you don't really, really (have) your best effort on defense, it's hard to win a game like that."
Without Curry, the Warriors simply don't have that kind of margin for error. They fell to 4-6 over the past 10 games without him — 8-13 in the 21 games he has missed all season.
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While Santos has enjoyed the extra runway of late, and taken advantage of it, he's well aware of the Warriors' reality. Curry could probably pay the entirety of his new deal with pocket change.
"We're creating something right now, so in the future we all want to (continue to) play together," Santos said of himself, Moody and Podziemski. "But at the same time, we still have Steph. … We know that he's the guy that makes the difference."
