The Golden State Warriors won their 70th game of the season on Thursday night, easily handling the San Antonio Spurs at Oracle Arena and moving one game closer to the NBA record for wins, which was set in the 1995-96 season by the Chicago Bulls.
The Warriors have just clinched first place — head coach Steve Kerr joked that it’s been an unreal season when you need 70 wins to clinch first in the West — and need three wins in their three remaining games to go 73-9 and break the record for wins in an NBA season.
With first place clinched, Kerr said he was inclined to rest guys heading into the playoffs. But he also said he’d talk to the team, and leave it up to them.
I say: Go for it, Warriors. Go for history.
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My logic? Well, that’s where it breaks down. My main logic in why the Warriors should go for the record is because that would be really freaking cool. I understand that isn’t the best logic for something like this.
The Warriors could use the rest, too. I wrote earlier this week about how the pursuit of the perfect season had left the Warriors mentally and physically exhausted. Draymond Green admitted the team was ready for the season to be over and to get to the playoffs.
These last three games are also essentially meaningless when it comes to the Warriors’ pursuit of a repeat championship. The goal is to win the whole thing, and with the Warriors having clinched the number-one seed, there’s no real benefit from a playoffs perspective in playing your best players in the final three games.
Guys could get injured. Things can happen in three NBA games, especially games against teams as good and as physical as the Grizzlies (a team they play twice) and the Spurs (a team they play once).
Kerr addressed these concerns:
“I’m a little uneasy about it. It’s not that I’m worried about injury. You can get injured in practice. It’s not so much that I want to rest guys to avoid injury, but we do have a back-to-back here. It will be our third game in four nights.”
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That being said, there are only so many shots at history. The Warriors worked all season to get to this point, to get within three games of breaking what many thought was an unbreakable record. To give up now?
After the game Green himself said: “So to get this far and kind of just tank it and say, ‘Aw, never mind.’ … Let’s face it, we probably will never get to this point again. That’s why it’s only been done one time. I think most guys in the locker room are all-in, and we’ll figure that out this weekend.”
The Warriors are already historically great, but I think Green, Kerr and Stephen Curry all have a grasp on history — great seasons, great performances have a way of being forgotten when they don’t grasp records, or at least tie them. The 95-96 Bulls set the record for 72 wins, but not many people remember the 1996-97 Bulls came back and won 69 games the next year. Records get remembered. We as Americans do that. We seize on the best. It’s how we are, for better or worse.
I will never forget this Warriors season, I doubt many NBA fans will, but to have it starred and bulleted with a record is something these guys deserve, and have worked incredibly hard all season to achieve. They only have so many shots at history. They should go for it.
