The Golden State Warriors had gone well over a year between home losses until the Boston Celtics beat them at Oracle Arena last week. Since that loss, the Warriors have lost another home game, this one in even more surprising fashion to the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves.
Even with two losses in their last three games, the Warriors are still 69-9 and in striking distance of breaking the Bulls' record of 72 wins in a season. The Warriors would need to win their final four games, two of which are against the Spurs, but they still believe it's possible. After the loss to the Timberwolves, there were some who thought that they would halt their pursuit of the record and get ready for the playoffs, but that is not the case.
Star point guard Stephen Curry said that this team has shown they are not invincible, but they are mature and they still want the record. The Warriors realize that the ultimate goal is to get another championship, but since they have put themselves in the position to potentially make history, they want it.
For much of the season, the Warriors went through basically saying that they weren't thinking about the record. Steve Kerr finally admitted that breaking the 1995-96 Bulls record was a goal of theirs, but since then, they haven't played as well. All-star forward Draymond Green admitted earlier this week that the team has gotten bored of the narrative of going after the record and they just want the playoffs to start.
Green believes that the team got caught up in the hype of winning 73 games, and that has affected their play. Curry thinks that this little streak could be a blessing in disguise, though, because it gives the team a wakeup call with the playoffs on the horizon. Golden State could easily decide to call off the dogs and rest their players over the final three games, but it doesn't seem like that is what they will do.
The Warriors will instead use these last four games to iron everything out heading into the postseason. If they win all four games, great, if not, they hope to at least head into the postseason on more of an upswing. Of course, the Warriors still want the record badly, as they are so close that it would be impossible not to, but they also realize that it is not the end of the world if they don't get it because there are bigger things at stake.
