Eleven wins and zero losses. This is the ratio that represents a perfect season start for Oakland’s very own defending champions; the Golden State Warriors. With a target on their back after taking the NBA by storm last year and outplaying a Lebron-dependent Cavaliers team in the Finals, the world champs are ready and able to make another championship run this year. Thus far into the 2015-16 season, they’re proving yet again to the world why they are the best team in basketball.
With their supercharged offense paired alongside tough interior defensive, the champions are flourishing under the lead of last year’s league MVP: Stephen Curry. Although the Warriors have rightfully enjoyed their historic start, sitting at 11-0, that doesn’t mean that teams are throwing everything they have against them in hopes that they might triumph over the world champions. One such team tried this strategy the past Saturday night. One of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference currently, the Brooklyn Nets, whom have won a total of one game this season, traveled out West in hopes that they might burst the defending champs perfect record bubble.
And they freaking brought the heat people.
Thaddeus Young and former GS Warrior Jarrett Jack got things going early for the Lionel Hollin’s squad as they would end the contest with 20+ points each. Also, the Brooklyn defensive scheme would limit the Warriors to just 40% 3-point shooting on the night. In fact, the Warriors would take the lead in this game late for the first time midway through the fourth quarter.
Even though they eventually gained the lead in the fourth, they would never lead by that much really and this caused multiple leads changes throughout the latter part of the fourth quarter. From my perspective of those I was viewing the game with, the reason that this game ended up being unnervingly close and going into overtime is because Brooklyn was playing their best game, while the Warriors were playing definitely one of their worst so far this season. This is was made apparent when Andre Igoudala, last year’s final MVP, bailed out the team with last second crack shot of a three point attempt that somehow went into the basket.
Sadly this comes with being world champions unfortunately. There’s a huge bullseye on your back because every team in the league thinks they can gain momentum or turn their season around with a victory against you. Fortunately, for the Warriors sake, the Net’s somehow managed to choke at every critical point during the game, so that the Warriors could finally find a rhythm in overtime and de-moralize their opponents in overtime. This inability to close out the game by the Nets culminated on the last play of regulation as the Nets could not convert the close range field goal.
And yes, I’m pointing the blame finger at you, Brooke Lopez.
From then on, the Warriors absolutely dominated the Nets in overtime; yet that’s not really what is significant about this game. Whether the Warriors want to believe it or not, they got very very lucky against the Nets, and without that luck they surely would not be the only undefeated team in the league right now. So looking ahead in their schedule, in the absence of their championship seasoned head coach and former player Steve Kerr, I expect interim coach Luke Walton to make very clear to his players that they need to play at the championship level every night in order to sustain this run. If not, they’ll keep having scares against some of the league’s lower tier clubs. But for the moment, they should rejoice in their undefeated streak, which has cast a shadow over all other reigning world champions season starts prior.
So hats off to you guys, and keep on defending “Warrior’s ground”.
