After the final game of the Golden State Warriors' regular season, Klay Thompson, fresh of a 41-point outing, was asked about his team's opponent in the first round of this season's playoffs: the Denver Nuggets.
Ernie Johnson of "Inside the NBA" reported that the Warriors had defeated the Nuggets only once in four appearances this season. When asked what stock the Golden State Guard put in this fact, Thompson brushed it off.
"I mean it's a clean slate now," Thompson said. "Especially if we go to the full playoffs, it's going to be a scary sight for the rest of the NBA."
This isn't just a canned statement of optimism from someone entering the playoffs. There is a lot of truth in what Thompson said, especially in the second part of his response.
During four games against the Nuggets this season, the Warriors were far from "perfect" as at least one member of Golden State's Core Three Stars (Thompson, Steph Curry and Draymond Greene) was missing, with Greene missing all those competitions. I was missing. Not only are all three expected to play in the postseason, but Thompson has one of the best scoring parts of his career, and Green is no longer "making [the Warriors] worse"—though in all seriousness, the team was 34-12. When he played this season.
That's not to say that it will be an easy matchup. Denver still has a top-10 scoring offense, boasts one of the best shooting percentages in the league and is the MVP favorite on the roster in Nikola Jokic.
If there's any cause for concern, people should point to things instead of games where the Warriors looked nothing like the team that would be on the floor chasing a fourth title in eight seasons.