With 14 straight wins to start the regular season, the Cavaliers are off to a historic start and are getting closer (this Sunday night against Charlotte) to the second best mark in NBA history. For first place, the road is still long since in 2015/16, the Warriors had exploded the counters, increasing the record from 15-0 to 24-0!
For a month and a half, the Californians will march on the league, flying from success to success. It must be remembered that they had the wind at their backs. The previous season, they won 67 matches then the title, against LeBron James' Cavaliers.
It was a spectacular, offensive, sparkling and refreshing team: Steve Kerr had just arrived on the bench, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were still very young and the 3-point revolution, for which they were largely responsible , was just beginning.
Steve Kerr, in fact, is not on the bench to start this 2015/16 financial year. The coach is hampered by back problems, he had surgery during the summer and cannot be physically present in the rooms for the first matches (he will return just before the All-Star Game, in February 2016). It is therefore his assistant Luke Walton who takes the keys and must run the reigning champions. The Warriors' system is so strong and perfectly integrated by the players that we won't see the difference…
The coin always lands on the right side
Over the first four matches, Golden State won with a total difference of 100 points: the first NBA record. The Grizzlies, who had upset the Californians in the Western Conference semi-finals a few months earlier, were swept away 119-69!
The first test comes in the fifth match, with a complicated clash against the Clippers, on November 5, 2015. The match is played over the last possessions and after a physical encounter, with a lot of whistles. But with 13 points in the last quarter, Stephen Curry allowed his team to get by. “It was fun. It’s really the first match that’s played at the end.”underlined Draymond Green.
There will be others. This is the power of memories. From this era, we remember a team that was astonishingly fluid in attack, with a playmaker capable of hitting everywhere and all the time, and who had a formidable habit: crushing his opponent in the third quarter.
All this is obviously true, but looking back into the details of this series, we notice that the Warriors had difficult evenings. But as the victories kept coming, confidence was strong and we had the feeling – like Cleveland right now – that as soon as we threw the coin in the air, it landed on the right side.
The proof with this sequence of three meetings (the Nets, the Raptors and the Clippers) between November 14 and 19: each time, successes with 8 points or less and a decisive Stephen Curry in the last quarter. Particularly in a new high-level duel against Los Angeles.
The Warriors finished October and November with a perfect 19-0 record, earning Luke Walton the Coach of the Month award. Even though he is temporary and especially because, because of this status, the victories are credited to Steve Kerr's record…
The coach can still thank the 2015 MVP (who will be again in 2016) during the last match of November (106-103 victory) where he scored 10 points in the last quarter against the Jazz, while the Warriors lost the last act. On December 5, the Raptors won the second half but could not stop Stephen Curry, who scored 15 units in the last twelve minutes to keep this series alive.
Morally exhausted by this crazy series then physically in Boston
Then comes a trap match in Boston, on December 11, without Klay Thompson. The match goes until the end of the night, in double overtime. Draymond Green plays 49 minutes, Stephen Curry only two fewer and, once again and for the 24th time in a row, the Warriors win. But this success will leave its mark since, the next day, December 12, we have to play again in Milwaukee. The Bucks are certainly not yet the big team of the early 2020s, but with this “back-to-back”, they feel that it is the time to achieve the feat.
A clue clearly shows this: “24-1” jerseys are distributed to spectators. “I want one of the 24-1 Bucks jerseys. I need this in my collection. It was incredible”the Golden State playmaker would later recall. Tired (6/27 at 3-pts, 17 lost balls) and after having flirted with corrections several times, the Californians can no longer perform miracles. They lost to a team where the best scorers have since disappeared from the league: 28 points for Greg Monroe, 19 for Jabari Parker, 18 and 17 for OJ Mayo and Michael Carter-Williams. There is nevertheless a first career triple-double for a young Greek, Giannis Antetokounmpo, with 11 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
End of series and record therefore, and the Warriors account can only announce it lucidly: “We knew the series was going to end well at one point or another. »
A forgotten record, even neglected because of the sequel?
Wasn't Luke Walton a little relieved? Such a series, if it has qualities at the beginning for a group, can also become, in the long run, more of a burden and an additional pressure than anything else. “Not for me, no. Losing sucks. Even at 24-1”replies the interim coach, who nevertheless does not rule out the positive aspect of a defeat at this time. “I'm sure there will be some mental relief going forward. »
This setback will not have weighed down the group since the result is another 12 successes in 13 matches. On January 11, 2016, a month after the 24-0 record, the 2015 champions were 36-2! We know, they will finish the regular season with a new record: 73-9, thus erasing that of Michael Jordan and the Bulls of 1995/96 (72-10). It is this brand which is now the reference when we talk about the Warriors version 2015/16, which has therefore somewhat erased the memory of the 24-0, reactivated in recent days by the performance of Kenny Atkinson's Cavaliers.
Plus, what happens next is so memorable that those crazy weeks of fall 2015 seem bland in comparison. The Warriors will lose the 2016 Finals against the Cavaliers after leading 3-1 and at the end of a legendary Game 7 with two unforgettable actions: LeBron James' counter and Kyrie Irving's 3-point shot. And as if that wasn't enough, a few days after this series, Kevin Durant announced that he was opening a “new chapter” in his career by signing with Golden State.
Even if this 24-0 record is set to remain the benchmark for a while, the 2016 Finals and the arrival of the 2014 MVP, by force of circumstances, eclipse it. Nevertheless, with the 73-9, these 24 successes symbolize the domination of these “first” Warriors, those with Harrison Barnes and not “KD”, with Stephen Curry in MVP mode.
