Winners and Losers from Warriors' Play-In Game Win Over Clippers

The Golden State Warriors kept their season alive with a 126-121 comeback win over the LA Clippers in Wednesday's play-in game.

The Dubs will now travel to Phoenix to play the Suns on Friday for a spot in the playoffs. The winner will play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.

In my takeaways piece, I already focused on Stephen Curry, so you won't get more analysis on him here.

We cover just about everything else with the winners and losers template.

Winner: Kerr's Faith in Green

This subhead could just as easily be "Draymond Green for his defense on Kawhi Leonard," but Steve Kerr deserves his flowers too for sticking with Green when things weren't going well this season.

In February, I wrote that Green should come off the bench. I wasn't the only one.

Green was having arguably his worst season since his rookie year.

Many coaches would have severely cut his minutes, and perhaps that wouldn't have been disastrous, as Green has said he's OK with coming off the bench.

Instead, Kerr started him every game he played and publicly defended him over and over.

The premise was that Green is someone you want in a game with stakes, as Green has reminded us many times. As on Wednesday, Kerr and Green were right.

Green had seven points, nine assists, six rebounds and four steals. His two steals in the last 50 seconds essentially ended the game. The fact that Leonard had just seven points with zero assists and five turnovers in the second half was due in large part to Green's defense.

Kerr instilled confidence in Green all season, and that helped Green deliver Wednesday.

Loser: Clippers' Future with Kawhi

The Clippers and Warriors are in similar situations, but the Clippers have it worse.

Both teams are led by an aging star but are lacking a young talent who is true cornerstone for the future.

The two main differences are a) the Warriors have much more talent overall when healthy (if they ever get healthy, that is) and b) the Clippers have less draft capital than Golden State.

If the Pacers' 2026 draft pick doesn't convey to the Clippers, LA will own just one first over the next three seasons. And the Thunder have swap rights on that pick, a 2027 first, which is about the worst first-round pick a team in need of talent like LA can have.

To be clear, winning this game wouldn't have changed the Clippers' outlook much, but perhaps it would have given Leonard more belief in this team's future.

Instead, the Clippers will head into an offseason without no momentum and not much ability to get better.

Winner: Porzingis' Free-Agency Leverage

Porzingis had his best game as a Warrior on Wednesday, showing he's a big-time player when the lights are bright.

The 7'2" Latvian had 20 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 3-of-6 from three. He's barely played with Curry, so it's no surprise that they don't look that comfortable together yet. But even with that being the case, he took advantage of Curry's gravity with a transition three off a Curry pass and a putback dunk off a Curry miss in which both defenders stayed with Curry, leaving the lane open for him.

With Porzingis' injury and illness history, it's not clear what his free-agency market will be. But whatever it was coming into the play-in game, the price has gone up.

Loser: Santos' Agent

When Gui Santos signed a three-year, $15 million extension this season, my immediate reaction was the Warriors got a wild bargain.

My immediate reaction was correct.

Since signing the extension, Santos has averaged 15.4 points in 20 games. All that was left to prove was performing in a game with higher stakes.

He was solid Wednesday, finishing with 20 points on 9-of-13 shooting. He did have five turnovers and had major issues guarding Leonard, but still, it was a successful outing for a player who had never had this type of role in a play-in/playoff game.

Had Santos' agent waited until the end of the season before having extension talks, he would have gotten his client a bigger contract.

Winner: Thunders' Draft Positioning

The Thunder own the Clippers' first-round draft pick, so with LA's loss, they are guaranteed to be picking in the lottery in the 2026 draft.

At the moment, it feels like the last thing they need in a young, developing player while they are competing for championships, but a) the Thunder have drafted immediate contributions consistently and b) they can use it for a big trade if they don't win the title this year and feel like their best move is to go after, say, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

They will likely be picking 11th or 12th in the draft, but it's possible they'll move into the top four with some NBA Draft Lottery luck.

That would be daunting.

Add us as a preferred source on Google