by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–It’s always nice to beat the Lakers when you clinch for a playoff and for the Warriors it was nice to beat the Lakers when you do it on the road at the Staples Center where the Lakers have been so successful. This is historic, the Warriors haven’t made the playoffs in back to back seasons in more than 20 years and it’s a really big deal.

As Stephen Curry said after the game on Friday night the ticking off of particular goals and one of them is they have to sustain success and going to the playoffs consecutive years is another step in that direction to become a contender. It’s a really big deal and you can’t down play this enough.

For the Warriors to acheive back to back playoffs is an important milestone for the Warriors and it’s a great step in the right direction for this franchise whose goal it is to be a contender and their one of the destination teams in the league and the Warriors are well on their way to doing that. The win on Friday only puts them in a position to clinch a sixth seed in the Western Conference.

It’s not official yet things could change given how the Warriors and the Trailblazers have played in the last three or four games. The Warriors still have a chance at clinching the fifth spot but if the season ended today and most likely it will end like it is today the Warriors will have the sixth seed.

That means they’ll play the Clippers and that is bound to be a crazy good first round match ups it will probably will be one of the marquee match ups in all of the playoffs as they’re fantastically fun teams to watch. On the Warriors side you have the Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson who can shoot from long range.

The Warriors also have Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Andrew Bogut, Harrison Barnes, all these quality scoring players who just put it on the line everytime they go out there on the floor. On the other side of the ball you have the Clippers who have been playing fantastic basketball the second half of the season.

Doc Rivers came over from the Celtics to coach the Clips and has done an amazing job of making this team live up to it’s potential.The Clippers Chris Paul even though he missed about 20 games earlier in the season is finally back at full strength as we all know he’s one of the best point guards in the NBA and Blake Griffin has taken his team up to another level. Griffin won’t win the MVP but he’s going to be the third or fourth guy in balloting which is a big accomplishment.

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio