“Now we can have a regular season”, Draymond Green said late Saturday. Giannis Antetokounmpo added a triple double of 11 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
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The Warriors shot just 40.9% from the field and only six-for-26 from beyond the arc. And obviously Golden State did that. “Thirty-three wins was within our grasp”. They also halted the Los Angeles Lakers’ 33 game winning streak with a team that was powered by Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West, back in 1972, still the longest winning streak in major professional sports history. Klay Thompson, returning after missing a game with a sprained ankle, was 4 of 14. The Warriors are counting on one speed-bump of a night to re-focus them on continuous improvement, allow for some much-needed rest and target what matters most, a second consecutive National Basketball Association title. Look at it this way, when LeBron James was in Miami the Heat won 27 in a row mid-season once – how often do we discuss that compared to the four trips to the Finals and those results?
Both clubs were playing the second nights of back-to-backs. Yet they were handed their first loss in large part to Greg Monroe who is a traditional big man. Monroe put up 28 points while shooting 11 of 16. The Warriors know they can trust their starters, they know they can win with small ball, but they need to find other lineups that they can use and trust situationally to win.
“We head west, and this is the bar that hopefully we have set that we can hold ourselves accountable”, Kidd said.
Of the streak ending, Curry said: “We’re a little upset that it came to an end”. “We were at home, a packed house. It’s a great win for us”. But the Warriors, playing their fourth game in five nights and their seventh straight on the road, were finally outlasted by the Bucks 108-95 on Saturday night. Even if you are 24-1, losing still sucks.
“We showed some spurts to get back into the game”, said Stephen Curry. Considering how long it took for the Warriors to drop their first game, and how many factors had to come in play for it to happen, it’s hard to imagine them losing more than nine games before the end of the season.
Golden State still can chase down the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ 72-10 mark, the NBA’s all-time best; after 24-1, a 49-8 finish doesn’t seem beyond their grasp.
The Warriors will be fine, and they’re still on pace to make history.
It was Milwaukee who ended the Lakers streak back then and they did it tonight. You start to believe that.
The Eastern Conference champions are probably going to get a whole lot better in the next few days.
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Curry said they can be proud of their achievement, but now it is time to move on. “We ended up with our first loss but we can appreciate what we were able to accomplish”. Some were inclined to include the four straight games the Warriors won at the end of the 2014-15 regular season; others, with a more purist view, thought the streak should be measured in games from one season only.
