The No. 7-seeded Golden State Warriors had a golden opportunity to eliminate the No. 2-seeded Houston Rockets from the playoffs. A win on Wednesday in Game 5 would've done just that. Instead, Golden State completely no-showed, going down by 16 points at the end of the first quarter, trailing by 27 points at the half and, despite a fourth-quarter surge, falling by a final score of 131-116.
In the grand scheme of things, losing this game isn't a huge deal for Golden State. There's no shame in dropping a road game in the playoffs against a formidable opponent, and the Warriors will still have two chances, one of which will come at home, to wrap the series up and punch their second-round ticket.
However, losing this game feels like a bigger deal for this Warriors team in particular.
Warriors don't have a roster built for many lengthy playoff series
Again, even with this loss, the Warriors should be favored to win the series, especially with Game 6 being played at Chase Center. Still, it's hard not to be a bit discouraged by this series extending past five games if you're a Warriors fan.
Beating the Rockets was never going to be easy, but the Warriors had them on the ropes. No-showing in this game forces an already older and beat-up roster to keep going.
Jimmy Butler missed Game 3 of this series with a left pelvic contusion. While he played well in Game 4, he was held to just eight points on 2-for-10 shooting in Game 5 after initially being listed as probable to play. He very clearly is not 100 percent healthy, and he's 35 years old. Wouldn't it have been nice to have gotten him some time off?
Steph Curry's minutes were limited with the game out of reach for much of the second half, but in the first four games of this series, he was averaging over 39 minutes per game. Now, assuming Game 6 (and maybe even Game 7) is a close contest, he'll presumably play heavy minutes again. Curry is healthy, but he's also 37 years old. He can play these heavy minutes, but it certainly would've been ideal to have gotten him some rest in between series.
This Warriors team is older, making it tough to believe they're built to play six or seven games for several rounds in what they hope will be a deep playoff run. Don't forget, these guys played a Play-In game as well.
Losing this game isn't the end of the world — the Warriors should still be favored to win this series — but it can come back to bite them down the line, knowing that more heavy minutes await this aging roster at a time when rest is extremely valuable.