Just in case the night needed more exclamation marks, Stephen Curry hit six 3-pointers. In the first quarter.
Just in case the significance of this forever Wednesday night together needed to be underlined, some Warriors grabbed souvenirs afterward and signed autographs in the locker room. For each other.
Just in case getting into the record book wasn’t enough, Golden State stomped in by beating the Grizzlies 125-104 amid the bedlam of Oracle Arena and Curry walking around unconscious again. And they did so without any Warrior playing more than 30 minutes, 31 seconds.
There are special nights, and then there are special nights.
The regular-season finale went as well as the Warriors could have planned, hoped or expected, which, come to think of it, is about the same as the previous 81 games. Look no further than Draymond Green cradling the game ball during the unusual move of addressing the crowd minutes after the buzzer, palmed in the hand and pressed against the bicep, and still clutching the same ball close when he stepped on the stage for the postgame news conference.
These Warriors of coach Steve Kerr understood exactly what they had accomplished by winning for the 73rd time in 82 tries. In breaking the all-time record of 72-10 set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (on which Kerr was a guard), they were not about to downplay it while also claiming to only be focused on a second straight NBA title. Not any of it.
“There was a lot of joy,” guard Klay Thompson said of the mood in the locker room, before the doors opened to the outside world. “Obviously everyone was getting all their gear signed and enjoying this one night. You only get to break 72 wins once, so an incredible regular season it was. I can’t believe it’s over. It went by incredibly fast, but it was a great feeling in that locker room when Steve told us how proud he was of us. He told us he never thought 72 wins would be broken, and for us to do it, I just can’t really describe it. Just got to embrace it, man. It goes by fast. So it’s a quick turnaround, like I said, but tonight it’s our night.”
That quick turnaround to Game 1 of the playoffs against the Houston Rockets on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) when the Warriors had hoped for a Sunday start and an extra day of rest is the extent of the bad news. (And even that is not a terrible outcome considering how the schedule broke their way at the end of the regular season — the Warriors are in a stretch of five games in 14 days, through the first four of the series with Houston.) Nothing real would be allowed to go wrong on their Wednesday of milestones and climbing plateaus.
The record for regular-season wins that had become such a challenge of late — even a burden at times as Golden State tired of questions about getting to 73 (and showed it in their play) — in the end went down with ease. The game was barely eight minutes old by the time the lead was in double digits, before reaching 22 in the third quarter and never dipping below 17 in the final period.
Kerr was finally able to exhale after originally stating he would prioritize rest over the regular season, until his players convinced him to loosen the restrictions and go for the record. They sold him on the idea that history like this comes once and it won’t run them into the ground for the playoffs.
He was able to get to 73 and also able to sit three of the five starters the entire fourth quarter while playing Thompson three minutes and Harrison Barnes nine. Kerr would even later insist that his life did not flash before his eyes when Curry got jarred on the shoulder on one play, saying he didn’t think it was that hard of a collision.
And then there was Curry. Needing eight 3-pointers to become the first player in NBA history to make 400 behind the arc — his league record before this season was 286, set in 2014-15 — he got the quick six on nine tries in the first quarter and 10 in all on 19 attempts to finish at 402.
The record for the team, the individual milestone for Curry, the extra few minutes of rest Kerr had been wanting to build in — done, done, done.
“It’s a great way to finish off what was an amazing regular season,” Kerr said. “I just told our guys I never in a million years would have guessed that that record would ever be broken. I thought it was like [Joe] DiMaggio’s hit streak really, and I was wrong. But I will say the same thing now that I said 20 years ago: I don’t think this one will ever be broken. Somebody’s got to go 74-8. I don’t see it. And I hope our fans aren’t expecting that next year.
“It’s a relief, especially getting through it in full health. We’ve got all our players available for Saturday’s playoff opener and everybody’s in a good spot and that was my main concern coming down the stretch once we secured the one seed. We had four or five games left, whatever it was, I was really worried about somebody getting hurt. But you worry about that every year. The difference, of course, was that we wanted to get the record. The guys wanted it.”
The guys got the 73. And the 400. And the light workload in the final playoff prep.
They got it all. They got a Wednesday night that will last forever.
Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.
