Steve Kerr Changes Warriors' Playoff Seed Goal After Celtics Loss

For most of the season, Steve Kerr has reiterated that the Warriors' goal was to get out of the play-in tournament by securing a top-six seed in the Western Conference.

Kerr now realizes that's not a realistic goal.

After the Warriors got blown out by the Celtics on Wednesday to drop to 33-36, Kerr even dismissed the possibility they could finish seventh.

"We've had our eyes on six for a while," Kerr told reporters. "That's out of the question now. We're not getting there. If we can string together some wins, try to get to eighth, that'd be ideal. Get two cracks at [getting in the playoffs]. But we're not getting to seven. We know that."

A Look at the West Standings Shows That Kerr Is Right

Here is the an up-to-date look at the Western Conference standings:

5. Rockets 41-27
6. Nuggets 42-28
7. Suns 39-30
8. Clippers 34-35
9. Trail Blazers 34-36
10. Warriors 33-36
11. Grizzlies 24-44

The Warriors are six games back of the Suns with 13 games remaining. Even if they had a strong close to the season to get above .500, they'd need the Suns to lose almost every game to get to seventh.

So, yes, the Warriors are rightfully shooting for eighth.

According to the Basketball Reference playoff probability model, the Clippers have a 60.4 percent chance to finish eighth, the Blazers are at 18.7 percent, and the Warriors are at 15.9 percent.

The model gives the Warriors a 51.3 percent of finishing 10th.

Perhaps the Warriors have a slightly better chance of getting eighth than the model suggests. Stephen Curry could return by the end of the month, which would could turn some projected losses into wins.

The difference between ninth and 10th is negligible, but the difference between ninth and eighth is massive. The ninth seed hosts the 10th seed in the play-in tournament, and the winner plays the loser the seventh seed and eighth seed.

As Kerr noted, the eighth seed gets two chances to secure a playoff spot.

History of the Play-In Tournament by Regular Season Position

History has been more kind to teams that finish the regular season ninth than 10th:

Regular Season Position	7th Seed	8th Seed	Did Not Advance
7	8	2	0
8	2	4	4
9		3	7
10		1	9

Only the 2025 Miami Heat made the playoffs after finishing the regular season 10th.

Of the three teams that finished the regular season ninth and made the playoffs, one was the 2021 Memphis Grizzlies, who beat the Warriors in overtime at Chase Center to advance.