Warriors Drop To Ninth Seed After Loss To Jazz And Clippers’ Win Over Knicks

A loss to the actively tanking Utah Jazz is bad news for the Golden State Warriors for several reasons.

The first reason is obvious: the Jazz have been intentionally trying to lose in an effort to land a high lottery pick, in an upcoming draft class that stands to be packed with blue-chip prospects. The Warriors, however, did a better job of playing losing basketball themselves, in a game that saw them attempt an astounding 52 threes while making only 16 of them (30.8 percent).

The second reason: the Los Angeles Clippers’ win over the New York Knicks tonight has resulted in a 32-32 deadlock in the Western Conference standings with the Warriors. However, by virtue of having the tiebreaker, the Clippers have climbed up to the eighth in the standings while the Warriors drop to ninth and into the lower bracket of the play-in tournament.

The Warriors have now dropped to the No. 9 seed with the Clippers' win over the Knicks

Both the Warriors and Clippers are 32-32, but the Clippers currently own the tiebreaker

Final game of the regular season: Warriors vs. Clippers in LA

— Dalton Johnson (@DaltonJ_Johnson) March 10, 2026

There’s no question that the Warriors are locked into the play-in tournament no matter how well they perform the rest of the regular season; it simply becomes a matter of whether they’ll be in the upper bracket, where one win gets them an outright playoff berth while giving them two chances to do so; or if they fall to the lower bracket and will have to win two-straight games in order to make it to the playoffs.

Without the services of Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler III, the Warriors’ margin for error is significantly slim. In a winnable game against a bottom-dwelling team looking to obtain a high draft pick, losing will come back to bite them.

Then again, perhaps the season was already virtually lost when Butler went down with and ACL injury and Curry’s prolonged absence due to runner’s knee.