Is It Championship or Bust for the Golden State Warriors?
The Golden State Warriors‘ 58th victory of the season clinched one milestone that had not been accomplished in 39 years, and placed them one victory away of tying another.
All year long, the Warriors have proven that their game travels well. But none of their previous road trips had quite the same meaning as their late season trip up to Portland, Oregon.
A victory over Oakland native Damian Lillard, and the Trail Blazers gave Golden State their 58th victory of the season, as well as something far more meaningful. Stephen Curry led the Warriors with 33 points and had 10 assists as they claimed their first division title since the 1975-76 season.
Winning a division title was one of the early goals set by first year coach Steve Kerr, primarily because it would guarantee the Warriors a top four seed, as well as home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
The victory over Portland not only clinched the Pacific division title, it left them just one shy of tying the franchise record regular season win total of 59, set by the Warriors following their 1974-75 championship season — a win they secured on Friday night with a 107-84 rout of the Memphis Grizzlies.
There wasn’t an undue amount of celebrating, overexuberance, or chest bumping after their win over Portland. In fact, the Warriors seemed to take the accomplishment very much in stride. They took a team photo celebrating the milestone with their new “Pacific Claimed”shirts, and maybe turned the volume up a notch higher on the locker room stereo, but the celebration was otherwise, very subdued.
"“We might be a little subdued, but I think everybody is proud of what we’ve done,” Stephen Curry told nba.com. “We still have 11 games left to keep getting better so I think everybody is focused on that.”"
Kerr and the Warriors’ brass knows there are much bigger fish to be fried yet, and that the ultimate test will come following the end of the regular season.
There is no doubt that Golden State has been the cream of the crop in the NBA this season. They have proven to be a very deep, versatile, and resilient team. One night the Splash Brothers are demoralizing teams with their sharp-shooting exploits, and the very next night the Warriors are suffocating their opponents with a stifling defense.
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The accomplishments and accolades that teams and players achieve in the regular season are great, but in reality, the postseason is where legendary teams and players are made.
The most memorable moments and games generally take place in pressure cooker that is the NBA postseason. In that most pressurized of times, those significant plays — or lack thereof — could be the difference in advancing to the next round or sending a team home with heavy hearts and thoughts of “What could have been,” running through their minds.
There have been plenty of teams that have rolled thru the regular season looking like world beaters, only to see their season come to a painful and inglorious end in the first round of the playoffs.
The Warriors just have to look in their not so distant past for proof that regular season records can be thrown out the window come playoff time.
In 2007, the eighth seeded Warriors took on the Dallas Mavericks, the top seed in the Western Conference, led by league MVP Dirk Nowitzki in the first round of the playoffs. They were widely regarded as huge underdogs across the landscape of the NBA. Many thought they’d be little more than a small bump in the road for the Mavericks who were viewed as the favorites to make it to the Western Conference Finals.
Golden State was viewed by most people as having already had a successful season. The fact they had made it into the playoffs at all was thought of as a tremendous accomplishment, and that the team should be proud of themselves.
Dallas entered the series with a totally different outlook. They were the top seed, and their sights were set much higher than on their first round series, whom they underestimated. So when that final horn sounded, sealing Dallas’ fate in a blowout game six loss that ended their season, the Warriors secured an incredibly unlikely victory. Because they’d been the top seed and a dominant team, their first round playoff failure has led many to label their entire season a complete failure.
However, the Warriors had already accomplished more than the vast majority of people had ever expected of them, so a loss in the second round to the Utah Jazz didn’t tarnish their season or diminish their accomplishments one bit.
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The roles will be reversed for the Warriors this postseason though. After a dominant regular season, they will enter the playoffs as heavy favorites to win it all. They are the team with the best record in the league, who potentially have the league MVP on its roster, and seem to be powering their toward the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
This is new territory for Golden State. The Warriors are used to being the hunters, not the hunted. Many pundits around the league believe that Golden State can only claim to have had a truly successful season if they make it to the conference finals — at the very least.
The ultimate prize is definitely within reach for the Warriors, and they have shown throughout the regular season that they have the weapons and mental fortitude to capture it.
Will the Warriors rise up to the challenge and put an exclamation point on a brilliant season? Or will they succumb to the pressure and expectations of being the heavy favorite? Only time will tell, of course, but it’s fair to say that this year’s version of the Warriors will be judged solely on its postseason heroics, not by their regular season exploits.