The Warriors’ next maniacal chase is upon us

OAKLAND, Calif. – What would this NBA regular season have been without the Golden State Warriors? Who would have dominated the headlines if they hadn’t pursued greatness with so much fervor? How were audiences going to remain captivated if Stephen Curry hadn't expanded our imagination with his unfathomable shooting range? And, who else would upset past generations and generate so much hate-filled resistance if there wasn’t some team in Oakland winning in a fashion that defied our usual norms?

Fortunately, the Warriors rescued the league this season. Sure, there was Kobe Bryant’s retirement but there were a lot of eyesores between his unexpected farewell tour announcement and his incredible 60-point finale. LeBron James’ quest to bring a championship to Cleveland got lost in coaching upheaval, manufactured dramas and his odd social-media commentaries. There was Philadelphia, but no one cares about a team losing 72 games when there was another looking to surpass 72 wins. And, while there was an uprising in the home of Drake, a transfer of power in San Antonio, and a blur of Russell Westbrook triple-doubles, nothing was more intriguing than what the Warriors contributed on a nightly basis by strangling convention and chopping down history to become legendary.

The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls – the long-regarded standard of cutthroat supremacy, the 72-win masterpiece of Michael Jordan’s phenomenal career – suddenly have to look up to another team in the record books. Curry’s Warriors finished the season 73-9 with Wednesday’s 125-104 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, completing basketball’s version of a Mars landing.

“Never in a million years would [I] have guessed that that record would ever be broken,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr, a key reserve on the 1995-96 Bulls. “I thought it was like [Joe] DiMaggio’s hit streak, really, and I was wrong. I will say the same thing now that I said 20 years ago: I don’t think this one will ever be broken. Somebody’s got to go 74-8. I don’t see it, and I hope our fans aren’t expecting that next year.”

But who would blame them if they did? The Warriors waited until the season finale to reach a win total that some players in the locker room felt could’ve been met much sooner if they hadn’t confronted a brief, late-season stretch in which they were consumed by the chase. They snapped out of the “slump” and defeated their closest challenger – the Spurs – twice in a four-day span to set up a rather anticlimactic closing act against Memphis.

Golden State approached the game that will place it among hoops immortality should it eventually win a championship with so much nonchalance that the result felt like a formality. As thousands of fans filled the stands to witness Curry’s ballyhooed pregame routine, Klay Thompson sat by his locker-room stall calmly reading a newspaper. The team that aggressively sought the most pressure didn’t feel any. The opponent didn’t really matter because the Warriors were lining up a chip shot.

Wearing T-shirts that read, “Not On Our Ground,” fans making up Oracle Arena’s 175th consecutive sellout were ready to party upon arrival. Throughout the game, Curry’s mesmerized onlookers reacted to his every made 3-pointer as if they had just seen him turn water into wine. As usual, the man expected to soon win back-to-back MVPs made them drunk off the destruction.

Curry has brought the playground to the NBA like no other player before him and has become a transcendent figure, the unlikely face of a league that now worships the 3-point shot. His success has attracted detractors, but the slights have made him ravenous in claiming anything remotely within his grasp. Draymond Green was most vocal about getting 73 wins, but Curry quietly wanted the same – and he also wanted so much more. He needed eight 3-pointers to become the first player to hit 400 in a season and he notched 10. He needed 41 points to finish the season averaging 30 and notched 46. The game's best shooter is now a scoring champion who stands alone in exorbitant efficiency as the first 30-point scorer to shoot at least 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the free-throw line. Curry also averaged 30 points in fewer than 35 minutes, another staggering first.

“If he’s greedy, it helps us,” Kerr said. “But he just had one of the most amazing seasons that anybody has ever had in the history of the league.”

For the 19th time this season, Curry had done enough damage that he didn’t have to play in the fourth quarter. Curry admitted that for about two minutes, he sat on the bench with a towel draped over his head, drifting into a reflective period about how far he and this franchise had come. Nearly six years ago, Curry was so frustrated with the dysfunction of the Warriors franchise that he sent out a message on Twitter to calm fans and assure them better days were coming. Three years ago, he had to address the crowd after losing a second-round playoff series, thanking fans for their support. And now, he’s the leader of a possible forever team.

“I want to be great and I want to be the best I can be,” Curry said. “There are countless things we’ve accomplished this regular season that, hopefully one day, I know we can appreciate 73, but hopefully, one day I know we can appreciate the entire body of work of what we’ve accomplished, and hopefully, the Larry O’Brien Trophy [is] next to us here in a couple months.”

The 73rd victory represented a much-needed shift in focus for the Warriors. They have constantly had to repeat that the record won’t mean anything without a title. Jordan’s Bulls are admired because their 72 wins were followed by an NBA title, the fourth of his esteemed career. Kerr honored that Bulls team on Wednesday by wearing a pair of Scottie Pippen socks. Pippen has given the Warriors their respect but wasn’t willing to say they were better, stating that his Bulls team would sweep Golden State in a head-to-head series.

After finishing with one more win than the team considered to be the greatest ever, center Andrew Bogut joked that he is looking forward to the time in 20 or so years when another team is approaching the Warriors’ record. “You want to ask me about anything or say everyone sucked and we were the best and back in my day and the game changed,” Bogut said. “It’s just watered down and it’s crap. That’s exactly what I’m going to say … I hope I’m not like that. We do get bitter when we get old.”

The Warriors are a gift because they remained the topic of discussion, never shrieked or disappointed. Kerr wanted them to relax, to rest, but they stayed in the moment and pushed to become renowned. Their hunger for greatness was captured by one sequence at the conclusion of the game. Veteran Leandro Barbosa dribbled out the clock at mid-court and casually rolled the ball in the direction of Andre Iguodala. Before Iguodala could even react, Green sprinted from the Warriors bench to scoop it up.

Green desperately wanted to stake claim to a piece of history, just as the Warriors maniacally chased what many before them simply couldn’t or were afraid to pursue. Of course, the Warriors still need 16 more wins to repeat as NBA champions and complete a leave-no-doubt season. But they have already made the impossible attainable by capturing a record that was so exalted, so intimidating for the past 20 years. What does it mean to win 73 games?

“It means I’m part of the best team ever,” Green said, “and not many people can say that.”