The Golden State Warriors are gearing up for a final push in the regular season with 7 games left, and though the 8th seed is beginning to slip away as the Clippers grow their lead to 3 games, any momentum and cohesion the Warriors can drum up will be welcomed heading into the Play-In.

The most important thing will obviously be the Warriors' health, particularly regarding two of their most impactful players, Steph Curry and Al Horford. Both are making their way back from their knee and calf injuries, respectively, and should be back on the court sooner rather than later. 

Outside of health, chemistry is perhaps the next most crucial thing for the Warriors to develop, especially with their newest acquisition, Kristaps Porzingis. Picked up at the trade deadline in exchange for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield, Porzingis has now started to fully integrate himself into the lineup after coming back from some injuries and illnesses of his own.

Despite the Warriors' loss to the Nuggets on Sunday night, it was another promising outing for Porzingis as he dropped 23 points, tying for the team-high with Brandin Podziemski.

After the game, Gary Payton II spoke about how comfortable the Warriors have become with Porzingis in the mix, and how it allows them to focus on other important aspects of the court.

"We're good. He kind of replaced the dynamic Jimmy (Butler) had with the post-ups and bringing two (defenders) and playing off of him. We let him work, continue to play off of him, and just focus on that other end. We got to come out of halves with the mindset of staying disciplined and continue doing what we were doing in the first half."

It's notable that Payton pointed out the second-half struggles, considering it's been the Warriors' downfall in many games lately, especially against the Nuggets. If Porzingis can help ease their worries offensively, then it'll allow them to lock in on other aspects of the game.

It's been a while since Porzingis has been one of the top offensive options for a team, considering he was on the Boston Celtics the past two years playing alongside All-NBA players such as Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

However, that jump in responsibility hasn't shown to be too much at all in the past few games, as Porzingis has settled in very nicely as the first or second option for this depleted Warriors team.

Against the Nuggets, the big man's 23 points came on 8-14 shooting from the field and a perfect 5-5 from beyond the arc. It also marked his fourth-straight game with 17 or more points, with three of those four games being at least 22-point performances. 

Porzingis is only playing 23.2 minutes per game in his 11 games with the Warriors thus far, but his 17.6 points per game is already above the 17.1 points per game in 24.3 minutes that he was posting with the Hawks earlier this season.

Though this is still the least amount of points he's averaged since his rookie season, it's also the least amount of minutes and shot attempts per game in his entire career, so it's great to see that he's still able to make such a large impact offensively while restrained in his minutes.