Warriors’ In-Season Tournament campaign could get pretty darn silly

Amid the questions and struggles facing the Golden State Warriors this season, there is one area where they are doing rather well, and could potentially make some noise on the way to some hardware: the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament.

The new addition to the season separates all 30 teams into six groups of five. Those teams then play four regular season games against one another, and the best team from every group — along with a fourth wildcard team (one per conference) with the best overall record that didn’t top a group — make up the final eight teams that play a single elimination tournament in Las Vegas.

Despite sitting third in their group at 2-1, the Warriors are still able to make the tournament thanks to the tiebreaker rules and how all the teams in the group have done throughout their group stage games. As always, there’s an easy way, a hard way, and even some ridiculously silly ways that this could all happen. Here’s a breakdown of the Dubs’ potential path to Vegas.

While the Warriors have the same record as the Wolves at 2-1, Minnesota is above them in the standings because that team won the infamous Draymond Chokehold game. Above them both are the 3-0 Sacramento Kings, who are also Golden State’s next opponent.

The very tiebreaker rule that puts the Wolves above the Dubs is the same rule that could put Golden State at the top of the group if they beat the Kings. In the event of a Warriors win, they would share a 3-1 record with Sacramento, but would surpass them in the group standings with the better head-to-head record, which is the first tiebreaker.

The Dubs would also need the Wolves to lose to the Thunder, which would put Minnesota in third, Sacramento second and Golden State in first. The Thunder may have been eliminated from tournament contention, but they’re still second in the Western Conference standings — just one game back from the first-place Wolves — so this is not out of the question, especially since these group stage games still count as regular season wins and losses. Still, even in the easiest scenario, the Warriors’ destiny is out of their hands.

The Warriors still need to beat Sacramento in this scenario, but this takes into account what happens if the Wolves win their last group stage game. Golden State, Minnesota and Sacramento would all have a 3-1 record with 1-1 head-to-head records against one another. This triggers the second tie breaker: point differential.

Ahead of Game 4, the Kings lead that category at +29. The Warriors are at +5 and the Wolves are at -3. In order to finish first out of these three teams, the Dubs would need to beat the Kings by at least 12 points. A 12-point win would equalize the point differential between the Kings and Warriors at +17. Since the third tiebreaker is total points in the group stage, the Warriors would advance as they already have scored more points than the Kings even before Game 4, and a win would solidify that lead. Of course, winning by more than 12 negates the need for that third tiebreaker.

Once again, this still leaves the door open for a scenario where the Dubs’ destiny is out of their hands. There is an unlikely situation where the Wolves beat the Thunder by a big enough margin that it surpasses the Warriors’ point differential. In the case of a 12-point Golden State win, for instance, the Wolves could still finish atop Group C, but that would require at least a 21-point victory. Minnesota could also top the group with a 20-point victory in the Dub’s 12-point victory in that scenario, but that would require the team to score 29 points more than the Warriors did in their game. This would put the Wolves on point above the Dubs in the total points tiebreaker.

The Warriors should know what result they need by halftime, as the tip time in Oklahoma City is two hours before the tip in Sacramento. Also, in case you were wondering, the fourth and final tiebreaker is determined through last season’s regular season record. Because the Warriors finished above the Wolves in those standings — which also had the potential for some complicated permutations featuring these teams — Golden State holds that final tiebreaker over Minnesota.

The three group leaders as of Monday afternoon are the Lakers (4-0), Kings (3-0) and Pelicans (3-1). Since the Lakers have a grip on the top seed with an undefeated record, the only way the Dubs can host a quarterfinals IST matchup would be to take the second seed. 

There are two ways this could happen. The first and easier way would be to clinch Group C and hope the Rockets beat the Mavericks on Tuesday. Houston would surpass New Orleans at the top of Group B because of the head-to-head tiebreaker. At this moment, the Rockets’ group stage point differential is +16. The Warriors are currently at +5, but with 51 points scored more than Houston (360 to Houston’s 309), the Warriors can just tie the Rockets’ point differential to get the second host spot. So whatever margin the Rockets win by on Tuesday, the Warriors would have to beat the Kings by at least 11 points more than that number. 

The more difficult path involves Houston losing Tuesday, and the Pelicans winning Group B with a much scarier +33 point differential, requiring a 28-point margin of victory against the Kings. Neither of these seem super likely, but they’re still possible, so it might not be the worst thing for the Dubs to play with the unlikely tiebreakers with the Wolves in mind. 

Let’s say that the Warriors and Timberwolves somehow thread the needle in the eye of the hurricane on a collapsing planet and create a scenario where both teams not only win, but Minnesota finishes first, and Golden State finishes second. In that hyper specific scenario, the Dubs would then enter a tiebreaker with the Phoenix Suns, the current holder of the Wild Card spot with a 3-1 record and a +34 point differential.

The only way for the Dubs to snatch that Wild Card spot away would be to beat the Kings by at least 30 points. The Wolves would also have to beat the Thunder by at least 39 points, or by a number of points that equalizes both teams’ point differentials at least +35 (which would require at least a +38 margin of victory) while scoring at least 29 more points than the Warriors did in their game.

All numbers aside, this becomes null and void if the Warriors don’t at least beat the Kings on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Pacific time.