Why Warriors’ home stretch — beginning with OKC — could define their season

SAN FRANCISCO – Warriors coach Steve Kerr speaks, often ad nauseam, about the importance of finding rhythm, discovering flow. Having every player – from superstar Steph Curry down to seldom-used reserve Trayce Jackson-Davis – playing their part as a piece in a slickly functioning collective. 

Discovering that Zen was next to impossible early on, with the team playing 20 of its first 34 games on the road, a stretch that began with a brutal 17-game in 29-day start. Players shuffled in and out with injuries and the rotation shifted nightly. 

But after finishing 2025 with a 132-125 victory over the Hornets in Charlotte and only a couple of hours away from flying back to the Bay Area, Kerr acknowledged that the most difficult part of the schedule was finished.

And that, with 10 of the next 11 games at home, the Warriors need to seize on the cushiest part of their 82-game slate.

“We’ve got to take advantage of it, for sure,” Kerr said. “The schedule was against us for the first couple months of the season, and now it flips back the other way. We’ve got to take advantage.”

It begins tonight with as tough a test as there is in the league. 

The Oklahoma City Thunder may have fallen off their 77-win pace they began the year on, but the defending champions have already defeated the Warriors twice, albeit when Golden State was not at full strength. 

The rest of that home schedule, though? A plush collection of pushovers. 

A home game against the perennially tanking Jazz before a quick flight to Los Angeles to face the surging but still dysfunctional Clippers. 

Then a buffet of losers in the Bucks, Kings, Hawks and Trail Blazers awaits back in the Bay Area. The schedule toughens slightly after that, finishing with the Knicks, the familiar Hornets, Eastern Conference playoff hopefuls in the Heat and Raptors. 

So, not exactly the league’s most difficult competition. 

But the Warriors have shown plenty of evidence over the last decade that they may take their foot off the proverbial gas pedal against inferior competition. 

And in a Western Conference where only a few games could separate the play-in gauntlet from home-court advantage in the first round, letting winnable games slip away could sabotage the Warriors down the stretch. 

It could be the difference between a team nestled among the contenders, and a waffling outfit that will be bounced from the postseason after a single game. 

Making this upcoming stretch even more important is that the Warriors have also lost 11 of 19 “clutch” games, which are contests that are within five points in the last five minutes of regulation. Turnovers have often been to blame, as was the case last weekend in Toronto.

A Warriors team that could be four or five games over .500 with better play in key moments is instead just 18-16. 

But a notable development over the past two games was De’Anthony Melton and Will Richard playing the closing minutes. 

While neither is particularly tall – both come in at 6-foot-2 – they are each capable of defending any perimeter position while also providing good decision-making with the ball in their hands. 

“They know what they’re supposed to do out there, and there’s confidence and clarity,” Curry said. 

If the offense continues to click as it has, it will certainly mitigate the likelihood of a signature letdown. The Warriors have scored 120 or more points in five consecutive games, the longest such run since the halcyon days of Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant in 2018. 

Now, the Warriors will see if the outburst is merely a mirage, or the sign of a team that has found its groove.