Sixth games are tricky. One team is trying to end the series by winning it and getting some rest before the next round begins. The other team is desperate to win it.
The seventh game is not tricky. Both teams are desperate to win it.
What a difference the Warriors 6th game loss has made. Media figures were predicting they would win another championship after their fifth game victory. But the Warriors have been nothing if not inconsistent this year. And it's not a good look. Their championship teams won their deciding games.
Klay, J. Poole and Draymond had pretty bad games. Sacramento coach Mike Brown came up with his own brilliant adjustment, which happened to be the same one that his former boss Golden State coach Kerr came up with in the third game: go small, but make sure your guards crash the boards. The Warriors had no answers, nor could they match the Kings' energy.
So now the Kings have several advantages in the 7th game: it's a home game for them, and the older Warriors will be on short rest, only a day and a half from the end of the 6th game. The Kings came up with a lineup strategy on offense that the Warriors couldn't stop. On defense, they can chase Steph Curry and limit him to 30 points, and dare the others to beat them.
After the fifth game, one SF Chronicle writer predicted that the remaining three games would all be won by the visiting team. He's two-thirds right so far. Another more recently framed the loss as that the Kings running the Warriors off the floor in game 6 (as they did in game 2) suggesting a changing of the guard: youth over age (that is, mid 20s over mid 30s.) Others seem to be agreeing today--the Kings are the team of destiny, sweeping away the old Warriors and then the old Lakers. If the Warriors lose on Sunday, that will likely be the story line. (Then we'll see if the Warriors' management buys it.) If the Warriors win, well, forget they said it. This really is a deciding game, in more ways than one.
Even if they win, the Warriors have proven themselves vulnerable, and the "changed team" is capable of reverting to the team that barely made the playoffs. Had they won in 6, they would have been favorites against the Lakers (who did win in 6, decisively, against self-destructive Memphis.) If the Warriors win in 7, probably not.
In any case, the California second round begins Tuesday, with either the Warriors or the Kings playing the Lakers.
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