The path to the NBA playoffs is never a straight line. The regular season is too long, too taxing. Teams go through slumps. Players sustain injuries. Superstars get bored.
Consider the plights, if that is the right word, of the Warriors and the Cavaliers, who would love to reunite in June for a third consecutive matchup in the NBA Finals. Both teams are dealing with first-world basketball problems about six weeks from the start of the postseason.
The Warriors faced the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon without Kevin Durant. In a loss to the Wizards on Tuesday, Durant sprained a ligament in his left knee and bruised his tibia. The team said he would be re-evaluated in early April, a few weeks before the playoffs.
"The fact is, you lose one of the best players in the league, it's not like you can just change the scheme all of a sudden, 60 games in, and make these dramatic changes," coach Steve Kerr said Sunday. "It's more just, next man up and everybody play a little bit better."
Still, Durant's absence has been jarring for the Warriors, who lost to the Bulls two days after the defeat against the Wizards. The Warriors scored just 87 points against the Bulls, their fewest of the season, shooting 38.6 percent from the field. It was also the first time they had lost consecutive games this season.
On Sunday, the Warriors regained some confidence with a 112-105 victory against the Knicks. Still, Kerr said his team was "surviving" without Durant, even as Golden State improved its league-best record to 51-11.
"It's a long season," guard Stephen Curry said after Sunday's win. "Nothing is going to be perfect about your journey. Everybody is stepping up, giving maximum effort. We'll find our flow like we always do."
The Warriors are also wading into one of their toughest stretches. Kerr referred to the league's "infinite wisdom" in assembling his team's coming schedule: a trip to the Hawks in Atlanta (Monday), a brief stop at home to play the Celtics (Wednesday) and then back-to-back road games against the Timberwolves (Friday) and the Spurs (Saturday).
To be clear, Kerr did not sound excited about the grind ahead.
"It still seems bizarre," Kerr said, adding: "You can't do anything about it. So you complain about it a little bit. Get it off your chest."
The Warriors were not expecting anyone to feel sorry for them. Over the weekend, the Cavaliers' LeBron James was asked about Durant's injury. James expressed some sympathy. "You hate to see it from anybody," he said, before discussing his own team's woes. J.R. Smith, the Cavaliers' starting shooting guard, has not played since December because of a fractured right thumb. And Kevin Love, their starting power forward, had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in mid February.
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Explore all your optionsJames' list did not stop at Cleveland's troubles. He noted that Kyle Lowry had just had wrist surgery, perhaps imperiling the Raptors' hopes in the playoffs, and that the Bucks' Jabari Parker and the 76ers' Joel Embiid had recently sustained season-ending injuries.
"And so on and so on," James said.
His comments came off as a well-researched way of saying that the Warriors are not unique. Injuries are inevitable, and teams must unearth solutions. Against the Knicks, for example, Kerr slid forward Matt Barnes — signed after Durant's injury — into the starting lineup as a stopgap to defend Carmelo Anthony.
"With Kevin out, it takes away a lot of our versatility," Kerr said. "It really does change the makeup of the roster."
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, expect Smith to return in a little more than a week. (Without him, Cleveland still set an NBA regular-season record with 25 3-pointers in a win against the Hawks on Friday.) Love, who was averaging 20 points and 11.1 rebounds at the time of his injury, could be back in about four weeks.
The Cavaliers, who sit atop the Eastern Conference at 42-19, have not just been waiting around, though, having bolstered their roster in recent days with the additions of Deron Williams, a veteran point guard, and Andrew Bogut, a defense-minded center who could make his debut for the Cavaliers against the Heat on Monday.
Bogut, remember, was the Warriors' most dependable rim protector in recent seasons, but Golden State shipped him to the Mavericks last summer to clear room for Durant. Recently released after being traded to the 76ers, Bogut has found a new home, and a new title contender, in Cleveland.
For coach Tyronn Lue, the Cavaliers' late-season experiment in team-building creates some challenges in terms of figuring out his rotations, not that he minds. He thought back to when he was an assistant coach during the 2015 Finals, and the Cavaliers were so bereft of healthy bodies that they went with a seven-man rotation. Despite James' doing superhuman things throughout the series, the Cavaliers were no match for the Warriors, who won the championship that season.
As for incorporating the team's new players, Lue said: "It's going to be a process. But it's a great process to have, and we have great players. Now, we have a roster with 12 guys that should be playing."
Nobody would be surprised to see the Warriors and Cavaliers back in the finals. But as one team copes with a high-profile absence and the other brings new players into the fold, the past few days have revealed the different routes they are taking.