Programming note: Warriors-Blazers coverage starts tonight at 6:30pm with Warriors Pregame Live on CSN Bay Area, and streaming live right here.
PORTLAND – The Warriors rolled out of bed Friday morning with a four-game lead over the Spurs. It has been more than two months since they’ve had more breathing room in the Western Conference.
The cushion, however, comes courtesy of their good friends in Los Angeles, the Clippers, who whacked San Antonio Thursday night at Staples Center.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
And that, for Warriors, is the rub. They’ll see the torrid Clippers, in Los Angeles, on Saturday, roughly 20 hours after opening the post-All-Star-break schedule against the surprisingly competitive Trail Blazers on Friday night at Moda Center.
The stretch run, the final 30 games in the regular season, is upon the Warriors and it comes without mercy.
The quest for the No. 1 seed in the playoffs and the pursuit of a record-breaking 73-win season starts with a back-to-back set, on the road, with games nearly 1,000 miles apart and barely enough time to get a nap in between.
“It’s a tough back-to-back,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after practice Thursday. “Portland’s playing really well. And also, a 5:30 game on the back end of a two-hour-plus flight, it’s not easy.
Golden State Warriors
“I always thought there was a 24-hour rule. They must have changed it to a 22[1/2]-hour rule.”
The Warriors play six road games in nine days before returning to the cozy confines of Oracle Arena on March 1. After the Blazers and Clippers, they swing east to Atlanta, to Miami and to Orlando before heading west to conclude the trip Feb. 27 at Oklahoma City.
“Geographically, it’s like a blind man – no offense to blind people – just picked five cities on a map, and that’s where we’re going,” center Andrew Bogut cracked.
It’s a seven-game road trip that just happens to be bisected by the seven-day All-Star break that certain Warriors – Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green – did not experience due to their All-Star status.
For the Warriors, at 48-4, it’s a series of barriers that by the end could shed light on their chances to reach 73 wins and set an NBA single-season record.
“We all have heard what our record needs to be over the next 30 games to win it and what this six-game road trip means in keeping up with the chase,” Stephen Curry said. “But we want to keep the momentum we had going into the break and try to sustain that. It’s still a little premature.”
The Warriors have won 11 in a row, and two of those wins were particularly emphatic: a 132-98 victory at Cleveland on Jan. 18 and a 120-90 rout of the Spurs on Jan. 25 in Oakland.
So now it’s on to Portland, against the Blazers, who have won eight of their last nine, followed by a game in LA against the Clippers, who have won eight of their last 10 and 20 of their last 25.
“And then we go across country and fly for 15 hours to get to our next game,” Bogut cracked.
“If we don’t come out with the right mentality, we’ll get knocked back on our butts.”
That four-game margin over the Spurs may not sound like much. But for a team devoted to earning the top overall seed in the postseason, every advantage helps – all the more when the schedule is slapping you in the face.