Warriors found their reason why to play it back next season, but will they all return?

Q: Why did the Warriors lose to the Phoenix Suns in the play-in game?

The Warriors lost 111-96, struggling with sloppiness and mistakes, which reflected their performance throughout the season.

Q: What did the Warriors discover about their team this week?

The Warriors answered key questions regarding their core players and coaching, revealing a renewed sense of purpose and potential for the future.

Q: What are the future prospects for Stephen Curry and Draymond Green with the Warriors?

Both players are expected to remain central to the team's plans, as Curry's performance and Green's leadership continue to be vital for the Warriors.

Q: Will Steve Kerr return as the coach of the Warriors next season?

Kerr has indicated uncertainty about his future, stating he will discuss his role with the team's owner and general manager after taking some time off.

Warriors guard Stephen Curry couldn't recapture the magic he showed two nights earlier as Golden State fell to the Phoenix Suns on Friday in an NBA play-in game. (Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle) Something ended on Friday night for the Golden State Warriors. Was it just a season, one that Steve Kerr called "as tough a season as you could have"? Or was it the end of a championship era? The Warriors' 84th game on Friday looked an awful lot like the majority of Games 1 through 82. They were sloppy and overmatched and unable to overcome mistakes. The Warriors fell to Phoenix, 111-96, in a do–or-die play-in game. They will miss the playoffs for the second time in three years. Yet despite that fizzle and all the questions about the future, something significant happened this week. The Warriors answered the big question. They explained their why. Why is Draymond Green still on this team? Why continue to make Stephen Curry the center of everything? Why is Kerr still coaching? Why did Jonathan Kuminga have to go? Why isn't there a tear-down to start over? They answered all of it in the fourth quarter on Wednesday night. And it almost doesn't matter that they couldn't summon that magic again on Friday in a quick turnaround against the Suns, that their season clanked to an end and they now find themselves in the lottery. Because , , was tangible proof that their special magic still exists. It isn't just a faint memory or a theoretical idea. It was real. It was electric. Curry taking over the game. Green suffocating the other team's offense. Curry and Green performing a ballet honed through thousands of hours together. Kerr pushing all the right buttons. Championship DNA taking over, another team stunned, an opposing arena supercharged. It's a dream. It's a drug. It's an addiction. The Warriors can't quit it. Their fans can't quit it. They don't want to quit it. Because there's no high like it. "Steph's still got it," Kerr said. "He can still do it. It just gets more difficult as you get older. But that game the other night will go down as one of my favorite games we've ever played, (Steph) showing what he's made of, Draymond showing what he has." Curry is still the best show in the NBA. So it seems probable that the Warriors will take the spark ignited in that first play-in game and fan it into a fire that will fuel their decisions through the offseason. To keep it going for one more year, through when comes back from injury, and hope to recreate the magic. But will Kerr be leading the show? As the seconds ticked toward the final outcome on Friday, Kerr gathered Curry and Green on the sideline, and the three leaders of the Warriors dynasty wrapped their arms around each other in a group hug, their heads bent together. Was it a goodbye? An acknowledgement of one last time on the court together? "You'd be crazy not to think that's a possibility," Green said. Kerr said he would take a couple of weeks off and then sit down with owner Joe Lacob and general manager , and make a "collaborative decision." "These jobs all have an expiration date," Kerr said. "It may still go on, it may not. I don't know." Kerr said part of the consideration, of course, is the joy of coaching Curry. "I would never walk away from Steph," he said. "But everyone has to be aligned and right." Curry said he has been focused on the season and not thinking about what might happen next. "We'll get to the rest of it," Curry said. "I want Coach to be happy and be excited about the job. "He knows how I feel about him. That shouldn't need to be said." Complicating all decisions is that the Warriors ended the season with another tantalizing taste of what's possible and that's hard to walk away from. The same thing happened last year, when Butler's arrival made almost any outcome seem possible and the Warriors were riding high until Curry strained his hamstring against . That late-season success and chemistry fueled their fire all offseason. This season dissolved like a sand castle, in wave after wave of injury. But the memory of what is possible was always there and when the Warriors finally got healthier, they conjured the magic for one game. "For one night, you know, we're us," Kerr said after the Clippers game. "I know that may sound crazy to everybody out there; it's a play-in game. I don't care. Just absolutely beautiful to watch." It's an addiction. The Warriors will keep chasing that high. But will Kerr be leading the chase? This article originally published at ****.