To them, it must feel like they already have.
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The Golden State Warriors stretched their flawless record to 14-0 on Friday with a hard-fought 106-94 victory over the Chicago Bulls in Oakland that left them one win away from matching the best start to an National Basketball Association season.
Stephen Curry scored 27 to lead the Warriors, but it was Barnes who sealed the deal with the Warriors leading 96-92 in the final two minutes. He also led the Warriors with nine rebounds.
The Eastern Conference has tightened up more than expected, with the top 12 of the 15 teams being within three games of first place.
Shooting guard Klay Thompson added 15 points for Golden State, which made 10 of its 29 3-point attempts and shot 49.4 percent overall against a Bulls team that began the night No. 1 in the league in opponents’ field-goal percentage (40.8).
Chris Bosh had 23 points and 11 rebounds as Miami beat Sacramento, taking advantage of Kings star DeMarcus Cousins’ one-game suspension. They led by no more than six points over the first three quarters, and took a mere four-point lead into the fourth. They were already playing short-handed in the backcourt as Shaun Livingston missed a second straight game because of a strained hip flexor and Leandro Barbosa had a virus.
But the Warriors, fresh off a comeback in Los Angeles the night before, defied that logic and dispatched the Bulls last night after digging themselves an early hole. That set the stage for Barnes’ heroics at the finish.
“You just have to tip your hat to them”, said Clippers reserve guard Jamal Crawford, the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2010 and 2014. The Bulls don’t play again until Tuesday at Portland. “But it was great having him”. It’s a “small” problem, one that gets bigger every day. We were thrilled with the effort we had earlier in the season as far as the way we were starting games. For Los Angeles, the fourth quarter struggles of Blake Griffin highlighted what have appears to be more and more of a systematic failure for the Clippers. “And if we’ve got the chance to do it, why not?”
Dallas extended its winning streak to six by beating Utah, and closed within half a game of Southwest Division leader San Antonio. They had a “very brief discussion” about Hoiberg coaching Golden State before Steve Kerr got the job, Hoiberg said.
“He’s a problem, he really is”, Crawford said of the daunting challenge of trying to defend Curry, who is blessed with one of the purest shooting strokes in the league.
“It’s a no-brainer”, he said. I mean they swung it to (Andre) Iguodala twice for threes. “But it’s kind of silly”. “Telling me to make plays”. He made just 5 of 14 shots and scored 19 points in the Warriors’ 112-102 win on December 6, 2014, in a game in which Draymond Green scored 31 to lead the victory.
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Last year’s beaten finalists had suffered back-to-back defeats for the first time this season, including a double-overtime loss to the Bucks on Sunday, to drop to 8-3, but LeBron James ensured that it would not be three in a row as he led his side to victory.
