HOUSTON – Brandin Podziemski had the same natural reaction that any young player would have when asked about feeling the intensity of NBA Cup games after the Warriors improved to 3-0 in group play with a Nov. 22 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
“Hell yeah, we want that money,” Podziemski, 21, said on NBC Sports Bay Area’s Warriors Postgame Live.
Players on the championship-winning team will pocket more than $500,000, and those on the second-place team will take home over $200,000 – a significant chunk of change for veterans and youngsters alike.
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The Warriors have multiple steps to take care of first before even sniffing that amount of money. Due to blowing a double-digit lead against the Denver Nuggets a week ago, they lost their chance of hosting a quarterfinals game on their home court at Chase Center and instead will face the Houston Rockets for the third time already this season, playing them Wednesday night at Toyota Center.
A win in Houston would send the Warriors to Las Vegas for the semifinals on Saturday night, and a possible championship bout in Sin City this upcoming Tuesday night. A loss would end their 15-game win streak against the Rockets, and wash away the good feelings of Sunday night’s win against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Podziemski isn’t alone in sharing his desire for the Warriors to be crowned NBA Cup champions. And for more than the money, too. Draymond Green has expressed the importance of the game at every opportunity he has been given.
“A lot. A whole lot,” Green said in response to how much NBA Cup games mean to him after the Warriors moved to 2-0 in group play by beating the Memphis Grizzlies. “It’s an opportunity to win something, and anytime you have an opportunity to win something – unless you lack competitiveness – it should matter. So it matters a lot.
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“We want to be competing and winning everything we possibly can, and the NBA Cup is one of those things.”
Winning, especially when it matters most, has gone in the Warriors’ favor since winning the championship in 2022.
Marred by Green’s preseason punch to Jordan Poole following that title, the Warriors needed an all-time 50-point performance from Steph Curry in Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs just to make it to the second round, only to fall to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.
This past season, for the first time with a healthy Curry, Green and Klay Thompson, the Warriors failed to let alone make the playoffs under Steve Kerr after being embarrassed by the Sacramento Kings in the play-in tournament.
“We packed to go to Vegas, we want to go,” Kerr said. “We want to win the Cup. We’re in the quarters, we’re in a good spot. Our intent is to go after it.”
Winning doesn’t exactly do the Warriors any favors when it comes to the schedule, though. The Warriors would immediately go from Houston to Las Vegas, and then right to Memphis and Minnesota.
“It’s insane,” Kerr said. “It’s either a two-day trip or 11-day trip. Or maybe a six-day trip. I’ve never seen anything like this. I personally only packed for five days, I’ll just do laundry if I need to.”
But back to the importance of establishing winning habits. The Warriors last season were 1-3 against the Oklahoma City Thunder, 0-4 against the Nuggets, 0-3 against the Timberwolves, 1-3 against the LA Clippers, 1-3 against the Dallas Mavericks and 1-3 against the Phoenix Suns.
Combined, that’s a record of 4-19 against Western Conference playoff teams that avoided the play-in tournament. There’s a reason the Warriors were the No. 10 seed in the West, despite winning 46 games.
This season, they already have signature wins against the Boston Celtics, Thunder, Mavericks and Rockets. Starting so strong in the NBA Cup and watching a large lead evaporate in Denver, even the mild-mannered Andrew Wiggins admits Cup games have a different, more intense feel to them.
“They definitely do,” Wiggins said. “They definitely do. The physicality, the feel of it, the atmosphere – it feels like something more.”
Only Curry, Green, Wiggins, Kevon Looney and Gary Payton II are the remaining mainstays on the Warriors from the 2022 championship team. Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody were both rookies. The rest of the roster is new.
Some have playoff experience, some don’t. Playing for something bigger, even in the middle of December, can establish the winning culture the Warriors have lacked the last two seasons.
“I never got to play for the Cup, have never been part of the Cup games, so I’m looking forward to it,” Looney said. “We always want to win, so to put something on the line, to raise the stakes, it makes it more fun for our games in December. I know we have a lot of competitive guys.
“We want to win every game, but when you put a little extra at stake, it just raises the competition and I’m looking forward to it.”
There won’t be a parade down Market Street if the Warriors are NBA Cup champions, and there probably shouldn’t even be a banner hung up. Maybe that can be saved for the practice court.
What winning the NBA Cup would do is send a reminder to themselves and the rest of the league that any chance to get the competitive juices flowing and be champions – in December or June – Curry, Green, Kerr and the rest of the Warriors cast still are a step above after two down years of looking up at everybody else.