Golden State, technically, has a 27-game winning streak dating back to last season
On April 9 of this year, after a blowout loss to the San Antonio Spurs and a tough defeat at the hands of the New Orleans Pelicans (two presumed future playoff opponents), the Golden State Warriors rebounded with a strong home victory over the Portland Trail Blazers. Stephen Curry dropped 45 and broke his own record for three-pointers made in a season, and the West-leading Warriors rattled off three more wins to end the 2014-15 regular season.
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What’s odd is that Curry’s new record of 273 and eventually 286 threes (which he, seriously, is on pace to top in game 55 of this season) from last April might turn out to be the second-most historic part of that victory. The NBA apparently counts winning streaks as they run from season to season, which means those four wins coupled with the team’s 23-0 start to this campaign has them at 27 straight wins. Which means, in the eyes of the NBA, that I was lying to my daughter on Tuesday night when I told her “this team hasn’t lost since last June.”
Which means the W’s now are tied with the 2012-13 Miami Heat for the NBA’s second-longest streak. Which means the team is six wins away from tying the 1972-73 Los Angeles Lakers for the most consecutive wins in league history.
Which means the Golden State Warriors could tie the NBA record for consecutive wins with a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Christmas Day. Which means all your friends that love to remind you about how they don’t own a TV might be stopping in to provide some Christmas cheer come the 25th.
This is just fine, mind you. Sadly, the Warriors have a different coach (the spotless Luke Walton) this time around, due to Steve Kerr’s extended absence following the complications of his two back surgeries. The group is also without David Lee, Ognjen Kuzmic, and Justin Holiday as Kevon Looney and Ian Clark have joined the mix. The Portland team they downed some eight months ago in no way resembles the Portland squad that is working its way through a rebuilding effort in 2015-16, but hey – 27 straight wins are 27 straight wins, y’know?
At least in the NBA’s eyes, and the league isn’t alone.
Major League Baseball, understandably the most stat-obsessed of all the four major sports, runs the same program. Most famously, Orel Hershiser’s record-breaking streak of scoreless innings was allowed to carry over from the 1988 regular season into the 1989 regular season, in spite of the fact that he gave up an earned run 10 innings into his postseason run during the fall of 1988.
On a team level, Golden State matched Hershiser’s mini-misstep when they lost to the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals last May. The Warriors would go on to lose four more times during the 2015 postseason, even (in a situation that seems unfathomable right now) taking a series deficit to those Grizzlies, and these waiting Cavaliers.
To the NBA, though, the postseason is an entirely different beast, and that’s fair. Stephen Curry’s MVP statistical ledger dialed all the way back to all zeroes once the playoffs hit last season, though the cynic could argue that if you’re going to carry over regular season records from season to season, why not bring Curry’s points per game average along the way as well? Why not make these Warriors 90-15, if we’re going to count it all regardless of season?
It’s that last statistic that makes this all so wonderfully boggling. The Warriors have won 90 of their last 105 games, a mark unseen since the run that saw those famed Jordan-era Bulls go 90-10 in regular season contests between 1995-96 and 1996-97. The next closest run would the Kevin Garnett-era Boston Celtics, who went 93-18 between 2007-08 and 2008-09.
Garnett is long gone, but that same Celtic green awaits Golden State in Boston on Friday. The Warriors will have Wednesday and Thursday off, ample time to heal Klay Thompson’s ankle twitch (though he remains listed as “questionable”), but this contest will act as the sixth game of a road trip and the squad’s ninth road game in 22 days. The team, after most of the NBA clicked away on Monday night following a 111-point run to start the first 36 minutes of Golden State’s night, allowed the Pacers to make a game of it late in the Warriors’ eventual win.
Boston can beat them. Brooklyn competed with them for two quarters on Sunday. Just about any team save for the Sixers and Lakers (both sabotaged by a disastrous mix of front office, ownership, player and coaching decisions) can beat the Golden State Warriors. The Golden State Warriors, a team on technical pace to go 82-0, can be felled in a 48-minute match.
This is why the eager look ahead to Christmas Day’s game (with its somewhat off-putting local start of 2 PM), and the potential record-breaker against Sacramento three days later, needs to be quelled somewhat. These Warriors, thanks to the NBA’s view on things, have just seven games to go to take the top mark, but they also have the Celtics, Bucks (twice!), Suns, Jazz, Cavs and Kings to deal with.
For those scoring at home, that’s a batch of overachieving Boston misfits, one of the league’s worst defensive teams (twice!), one of the league’s most dysfunctional teams, a squad missing its two top defenders, a team the Warriors topped for the championship last year, and far and away the NBA’s most dysfunctional team.
Holy crap. They might do this.
(But they’ll never do this.)
(We think.)
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
