Coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors had largely resisted acknowledging the importance of his team's pursuit.
Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry, right, is hugged by Memphis Grizzlies' Vince Carter at the end of a 125-104 record-breaking Warriors win. Photo: AP
Coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors had largely resisted acknowledging the importance of his team's pursuit. For his players, the number 73 sparkled for months like a diamond amid the confetti of so many lopsided wins. They wanted to make history. Kerr was more concerned with chasing another championship.
On Wednesday, though, with the Warriors preparing to wrap up their regular season against the Memphis Grizzlies, Kerr recognised the unique opportunity at hand ��� an opportunity his players had earned by winning 72 games, by refusing to take nights off, by possessing the work ethic of iron welders while performing with the deft hands of magicians.
Dream come true: Stephen Curry, front, is hugged by teammate Draymond Green. Photo: AP
"More than anything," Kerr said before the game, "I'm proud of our guys for laying it all out there, all season long, for putting themselves out there and trying to achieve something that's never been done before ��� but more important, something that is truly great. It's amazing that our guys have been able to put themselves in this position."
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The Warriors went on to clobber the Grizzlies, 125-104, for their 73rd win, setting an NBA record for the most victories in a single season. They eclipsed the mark they shared for three days with the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
Another win for the Warriors (73-9) also meant another chance for Stephen Curry to do ridiculous things. He made 10 three-pointers, giving him 402 for the season. Having long ago obliterated the record he already held for three-pointers in a single season, he sought 400 as a nice round number. The crowd went apoplectic when he reached the target early in the third quarter.
Slam dunk: Festus Ezeli adds two points for the Warriors. Photo: AP
Curry finished with 46 points, shooting 15 of 24 from the field, and Klay Thompson added 16 as the Warriors shot 52.9 per cent overall.
The Warriors packed the regular season with firsts, becoming the first team in league history to open a season with 24 straight victories; the first to win 34 games on the road; the first to go an entire season without losing to the same team twice; the first to avoid losing consecutive games; and now the first to 73.
In the process, the Warriors took care of more menial tasks, like winning three of four games against the San Antonio Spurs while also handing them their only home loss of the season. As if the Warriors were not busy enough assembling their own catalogue of achievements, they moonlighted by spoiling the potential feats of others.
Keeping cool: Golden State coach Steve Kerr calls a time out. Photo: AP
As their victory total grew, so did the number of reporters following the team. The Warriors issued roughly 350 credentials to the news media for Wednesday's game. Fans at Oracle Arena found T-shirts draped over every seat back with the phrase, "Not on Our Ground." The game itself was more celebration than competition.
The Warriors will enter the play-offs as the top seed in the Western Conference and as the prohibitive favourites to repeat as NBA champions.
Amid all the chatter about records and history, winning another title has remained the team's ultimate goal. Kerr has been adamant about it, and if it had been entirely up to him, he would have rested some of his stars down the stretch to help preserve them for the post-season.
But his players wanted 73. So he let them play, sticking with his regular rotations, entrusting them to tell him if they needed a break from the grind of a long season.
"The decision on resting or not, it was a pretty easy decision for me," Curry said this week. "I'm not nursing any injuries. I don't think I put myself in a position to be a step slow by the play-offs. So why not go out and take advantage of an opportunity that may not come again?"
That was the team's general attitude ��� that cracks at smashing records held by forever teams like the Michael Jordan-era Bulls are not casually bestowed by the basketball gods. And while there were nights when the Warriors made the game look easy, they had to scrap for wins in recent weeks. They even (gasp) lost a few.
In fact, during a five-day stretch at the start of the month, the Warriors dropped two of three games. Careless with the ball and lacking focus on defence, the Warriors looked as if Kerr's concerns about late-season fatigue were materialising.
The result was that they needed to win their final four games to break the Bulls' record, and they did so with style. When the Warriors played in Memphis on Saturday, they trailed by as many as 10 points in the fourth quarter before escaping with a 100-99 win. They survived only after the Grizzlies' Lance Stephenson launched a pair of colourful misses in the closing seconds.
"Over these last two, three days, when we had the ability to see it in and it's kind of right there for us, it re-energises you and gives you something great to play for," Thompson said, adding: "That's why we were so resilient, because we realised this might not ever happen again."
On Wednesday, the Grizzlies were little more than a footnote. The Warriors will have a permanent connection to the Bulls of yore ��� a connection that runs through Kerr, but also, in a more indirect way, through Curry, whose father played for the Charlotte Hornets when the Bulls were dominating the league.
Curry recalled going to his father's games and waiting in the tunnel hoping to cross paths with Jordan.
"That was just something that was a special time as a kid," said Curry, who added that he always tried to emulate Jordan's competitive drive. "Every night you could look at his face and know he was never rattled, never unprepared for the moment."
Jordan's teams, Curry said, are remembered because they won titles. All their gaudy win totals meant little without trophies. So for the Warriors, work still remains.
"The goal," Curry said, "is to win a championship."
New York Times