The Leadoff

Us Northern Californians are in for a real treat as the Golden State Warriors take on the Sacramento Kings in a play-in tournament game tonight at 7pm pacific.  Winner moves on, loser is eliminated. The game will be played at the Golden 1 Center in downtown Sacramento. This will be a rematch of last year’s thrilling first round playoff series.

Warriors

The Warriors will be coming in as the lowest playoff seed and will need to defeat the Sacramento Kings to play Friday against the loser of the Los Angeles Lakers vs. New Orleans Pelicans game. They will need to win both games to even make it into an actual 7 game playoff series against the awaiting and resting Oklahoma City Thunder.

As always, coach Steve Kerr will be relying heavily on their legendary trio – Curry, Green and Thompson. Perhaps more importantly and certainly more than ever he will be looking to his rookies, especially Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis to help propel them over the Kings.

After the Warriors final regular season game on Sunday Draymond said, “It’s always a playoff-type game, you feel that. You go into their arena; their fans want to light the beam and see us lose… A lot of familiarity amongst the two organizations… For us, it’s another game that we have to go win.” Green understands the hostile environment they are heading in to. Let’s hope he keeps his cool and stays out of foul trouble.

Note Worthy

The Warriors and Kings have split their regular season games, 2-2 with the Kings winning their most recent meetings in late January and November. However, the Warriors are much healthier now and have won 10 of their last 12 games. The Kings will be without two of their key players, Monk and Huerter. The pair combine for an average of 25.6 points per game this season.

Kings

As for the Kings they feel good about their home advantage in their first ever play-in game. They will be looking for redemption against a familiar foe that I am sure they are tired of. Afterall, no two teams have played each other more in the last year than the Kings and Warriors. It will be up to their stars Fox and Sabonis to overcome the mighty hurdle of the golden boys in their shared golden state. I see Kings forward Harrison Barnes as being a real X-factor against his former team. Hopefully Warriors veteran Looney and youngster Kuminga light up instead of the beam.

Must watch!

So, make sure to tune in tonight. Watch with your kids, kick your feet up, put your phone down and enjoy what is sure to be an epic Northern Californian show down. You never know how long this Golden State reign will continue and I do not think we will be blessed with a better Warriors dynasty in our lifetime than we have been this decade.