National Basketball Association

Is the end of the Golden State Warriors' dynasty looming?

Published Apr. 18, 2023 10:01 p.m. ET

No team that's started 0-2 in a playoff series has ever won an NBA Championship.

And an 0-2 hole is exactly where the defending champs are sitting after dropping two road matchups to the Sacramento Kings to open the postseason. The Golden State Warriors' road woes have been well noted throughout the course of the season, and though they sported the league's third-best defense at Oracle Arena, they were porous away from home.

The squad went 11-30 on the road this season, and have continued to struggle in visiting arenas as the playoffs have begun. But will these problems persist for arguably the league's best team over the past decade?

Colin Cowherd sees the perspective from both sides of the spectrum.

"Let's look at it glass half-full: They just inserted [Gary] Payton and [Andrew] Wiggins into the lineup a couple days ago," Cowherd said Tuesday on "The Herd."

"Give them a couple days, let them go back home. Also, Sacramento's a tough place to play, they've been in both of these games with two, a minute and a half to go. The Warriors' defense … is holding Sacramento to about 45 to and a half percent shooting. They shot closer to 50 percent during the season. And by the way, the Warriors have never shot this bad. They're shooting 32 percent from 3, they led the NBA in 3-point shooting."

And though Warriors fans have reasons not to panic, they also have reason to do just the opposite.

"Or you could look at it glass half-empty," Cowherd went on, "the reason they're shooting so poorly, because Sacramento's all over them … and they've disrupted the offense. You could also say Jordan Poole's too inconsistent, too frenetic, too immature, and the team no longer trusts him. You could say Golden State was awful in the regular season, what's changed? You could say Draymond Green may get kicked out for an entire game in the series."

"We are watching a dynasty age in real time. Klay Thompson now, not the defender he used to be. … Steph Curry limps at least once every game. The young guys aren't ready to take the baton yet. … Poole, [Jonathan] Kuminga, Moses Moody. It reminds me a little bit of the Patriots at the end when a lot of intellectual capital left the room and guys got older. [Tom] Brady left, Josh McDaniels, Dante Scarnecchia, and all of a sudden, guys get older, you miss on a couple of drafts. The Warriors had James Wiseman, they let him go. … It feels a little bit like a baseball dynasty where you make two or three straight long playoff runs, and then you come back after another spring, and nobody has their fastball."

Cowherd is predicting a 2-2 tie after Game 4, but he's not feeling confident about his prediction that Golden State would win in six games. One can never discount though, the mettle of a champion.

Can Golden State make more history against the Kings?

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