3 takeaways after Warriors crush Rockets, all but clinch play-in

The Golden State Warriors have all but clinched a play-in berth. They rolled the Rockets in a 133-110 win Thursday night.

Here are three takeaways from the win.

The play-in awaits

Golden State is headed for the play-in tournament. They now sit 1.5 games back of the Los Angeles Lakers for the ninth seed (they play April 9), and 2.0 games behind the Sacramento Kings, who have the Phoenix Suns, New Orleans Pelicans, Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics left in their final six games.

This is all to say that if the Warriors beat the Lakers, they'd have the tiebreaker over them, and be at worst, a half-game back in the standings.

The Lakers have five games left, the Warriors six. If Golden State wins out, they'll overtake them in the standings.

Los Angeles faces the Cavaliers, Timberwolves, Grizzlies, and Pelicans in addition to the Warriors.

This is all getting ahead of ourselves, because it's asking the Warriors to win 11-straight games to close the season, and all of their next six. They'll see the Mavericks Friday night again, the Jazz twice, and the Lakers, Pelicans and Trail Blazers once.

Golden State wasted its chance to avoid the play-in, and probably wasted its best chance to improve playoff seeding. But there is a path to sneak into the eighth seed, albeit a rose-tinted one.

Draymond excellent, and quiet to officials

Draymond Green might be playing his best basketball of the season. Maybe that's an insane assessment following a 5-point performance, but his impact has never been more apparent.

Since his -- as Steve Kerr called it, "unforgivable" -- ejection, Green has catalyzed everything for the Warriors. His defense was phenomenal in Houston, where he tallied 8 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal, a block and a couple turnovers.

What was also notable Thursday was that Green was as quiet as you will ever see him with officials. This isn't getting caught up in the moment, or extrapolating it to serve as a misguided statement on his supposed "growth." We don't know what that man is doing off the court to work on himself.

But there have been plenty of times, including the last time against Houston, when Green has jawed with officials after seemingly every foul call, no matter how obvious they were. By my count, he had just two extended chats with officials Thursday night, and neither were the barking-in-the-face variety. And this was in a game he picked up five fouls.

He will surely get after officials again this season, but Green was businesslike against Houston. It might be (and probably was) nothing. But if he can play the way he has the past few games and keep the main thing the main thing, that's massive for the Warriors' hopes... whatever those hopes are.

Turnovers didn't matter, and the Splash Bros got back on track

After a miraculous win against Dallas in which they combined for 27 points on 10-of-32 shooting, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were absolutely firing against Houston. They flipped the script on that Tuesday night performance, combining for an evenly-divided 58 points on 20-of-29 shooting (Curry was just 2-of-6 from deep, while Thompson was 7-of-11).

This is what compensated for the Warriors almost comical turnover woes. They had 20 on the game, and had 10 in the first 12.5 minutes of the game, but it didn't matter, because they outclassed their opponents even while sloppy.

It was a smackdown shooting performance that silenced the upstart Rockets, and ended their season. It continued a now 13-game win streak against Houston, which is the second-longest in the NBA.

According to Anthony Slater, Thompson and Green shouted some "Warriors, come out to play" mocks for good measure. That was always the likeliest result after Tari Eason's ill-advised social media post.