After last night’s resounding win over the San Antonio Spurs, the Golden State Warriors have clinched the number one seed in the Western Conference, and by doing so have also clinched homecourt advantage throughout the entirety of the 2016 playoffs. That means they will be hosting games one, two, five, and seven of the NBA Finals, if (or when) they reach it.
This is a pretty big deal for a Warriors team that is unequivocally much better at home than they are on the road. While they have lost two recent home games, their only two home losses all season long, they still perform much better in front of their own Oracle Arena crowd. Then again, you would expect that.
If the playoffs started today, the Warriors would begin play against the Utah Jazz. In the second round, they’d face the winner of a series between the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies. After that, it looks like they’d face either the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals.
Either way, it could be a tough playoff stretch for the Warriors due to travel and things of that nature, but the fact they have homecourt advantage will ease that burden just a little bit. Coming into Oracle and winning is tough, and it’s something that has happened only four times in the last two seasons.