Warriors are building a nice supporting cast, but Steph Curry holds the key to the fate of the NBA playoffs

SAN FRANCISCO – Gui Santos already has an idea of ​​what the financial security of the $15 million extension he signed Saturday means for him and his fiancée.

“Now I can get some more Guis,” the 23-year-old wing said as he grinned after the Warriors’ lopsided loss to the Lakers.

That was the news Santos’ parents thought their son was calling when he called them back in Brazil after putting pen to paper on a new three-year contract with Golden State and told them he had “something serious” to talk about.

“They thought I got my fiancée pregnant,” Santos said, laughing.

While family planning can wait for another day, the Warriors aren’t enjoying the same luxury after falling further in the Western Conference standings following a 129-101 loss to the sixth-seeded Lakers.

Santos’ fourteen points were enough to take the lead for a Golden State team playing without Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler and Kristaps Porzingis. Rookie guard Will Richard also left in the second quarter after rolling his right ankle. The loss all but sealed the Warriors’ fate as a play-in team.

Now 4.5 games behind the Lakers, coach Steve Kerr acknowledged afterward, “that’s a lot to make up in 22 games.” It’s not something the Warriors are even talking about.

“It’s nothing worth talking about,” Kerr said, “because we just have to try to win and see what happens.”

Like everything else in Golden State’s orbit, the Warriors’ fate depends more on Curry’s health than their playoff seeding. The 37-year-old missed his 10th straight game with an overuse injury, commonly known as runner’s knee, and told ESPN’s Malika Andrews during the game that he expected it would be “a little bit longer” before he was cleared to play again.

Santos scored for the twelfth time in the Warriors’ past thirteen games. Moses Moody, 23 and also locked up through 2027-2028, was one of three others in double figures with 12. Brandin Podziemski, also 23, was held to nine, snapping a streak of seven straight games in which he scored 10 or more.

It’s a nice homegrown supporting cast.

But the group still has a long way to go in passing the torch of a dynasty that produced four NBA championships. As Moody noted afterward, the Warriors had to deal with LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

Draymond Green, 35, was their only “superstar” left on the floor. He was minus-30 in 24 minutes, the second time in his past three games. Green was Golden State’s worst player at plus-minus.

“We’re building, just like any other young team in the NBA,” Moody said. “That’s kind of the feeling of the locker room and the team right now.”

What young teams lack in talent, they usually make up for in moxie. But Kerr’s team showed nothing against an opponent directly ahead in the standings, at home, in prime time.

“If we want to win now, it has to be about energy, winning extra possessions, crashing the boards and forcing turnovers,” Kerr said. “We just fell so behind.”

There was little reason to tune in more than six minutes into the game. Golden State was already down by 17. Green knocked in a feed from Moody for the game’s first basket, and the Warriors went on to miss their next nine field goals.

Defensively, the Lakers’ Big 3 picked them apart at will.

“We’ve got to come out at that end of the room with some pop and some energy,” Kerr said. “It just didn’t feel like we were as involved defensively as we needed to be.”

Santos was already a spark plug before becoming a regular in the starting lineup about a month ago. The effervescent Brazilian was asked how the Warriors could suffer when he was on the ground.

“I wouldn’t say the energy, but our defense efforts,” he said. “If you have to guard Luka, LeBron, these guys are very difficult to guard. If you don’t really try hard on defense, it’s difficult to win a game like that.”

Without Curry, the Warriors simply don’t have that kind of margin for error. Without him, they fell to 4-6 over the last ten games – 8-13 in the 21 games he has missed all season.

While Santos has enjoyed and benefited from the extra runway as of late, he is well aware of the Warriors’ reality. Curry could probably pay for his new deal with spending money.

“We are creating something now, so in the future we all want to (keep playing) together,” Santos said of himself, Moody and Podziemski. “But at the same time, we still have Steph. … We know he’s the guy who makes the difference.”