Lowell Cohn: Little left to stop Warriors from reaching wins record

So, can the Warriors win 73 games this season?

That is a big sports question around here. Not the biggest question.

You want a bigger one - will the Warriors win the championship the second season in a row?

But, OK, our attention turns to the schedule, to how astonishingly good and fun these Warriors are, and to this fact: The Warriors are one game ahead of the winning pace of the legendary 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls who hold the NBA single-season record with 72 wins.

So, can the Warriors win 73 games this season? Heck, yes.

Let’s go to the numbers. I feel like John King on CNN when he goes to that electronic map and explains in excruciating detail what town or county or area Bernie or Hillary or Donald or Ted has to win or might win or would like to win, and I’m watching him and getting a migraine.

Anyway, the Warriors’ record is 61-6, one whopping great record. They have 15 games left in various towns and regional areas - the map please, John. They can lose only three. Lose four and they don’t set the league record. If you’re into percentages, they must win 80 percent of their remaining games, a rough mountain to climb.

It’s just that their winning percentage is .910, so they can underperform and still make history.

Here are more numbers and please forgive me for throwing numbers at you. I am not a numbers guy. When I took the SAT a million years ago, I was puzzling through the math early one gray morning, and the teacher in charge announced, “Pencils down,” and I hadn’t come close to completing all the problems. Which explains why I became a sports writer.

The Warriors play nine of their remaining 15 at home - 60 percent. Hey, I can count. Considering they have won 50 in a row at Oracle Arena, their chances of winning all nine, or most of those nine, are pretty good.

As of Thursday morning when I’m writing this, eight of their opponents have winning records. That means their schedule has a moderate degree of difficulty. Certainly not a killer schedule.

Are there potential potholes in the road? Indeed.

They play the San Antonio Spurs three times - 20 percent of their remaining games. Right, John King?

The Spurs are a good team, maybe a great team. The Spurs are pressing the Warriors for the most wins in the West and it seems axiomatic to say the Spurs want to finish first and get home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. Except, of course, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is an odd duck who has his own private priorities.

Sometimes he plays his stars. Sometimes he doesn’t. When reporters interview him before games, he almost never utters a serious word.

He’s a jokester, seems to proclaim he has no interest in talking to the media - maybe he’s right about that.

It’s just that you don’t know where he’s coming from. When the Spurs came to Oakland in late January, he didn’t play Tim Duncan. OK, Duncan was hurt. But we’ve seen stuff like that before, Popovich telling his stars to take the night off.

The Warriors murdered San Antonio 120-90. So either Popovich wants to atone for that loss in the remaining three against the Warriors and he wants to finish first in the West, or he doesn’t.

The Spurs have the advantage over the Warriors. Two of their three remaining games take place in San Antonio - advantage Spurs. And, get this - for the two games in San Antonio, the Warriors will be playing the second game in two nights, as in back-to-backs. They play the previous nights in Dallas and Memphis, and that means when the Warriors face the Spurs, they will be road weary. Advantage Spurs.

The Warriors could lose all three games to the Spurs and still win 73 games.

The Warriors won’t lose all three to the Spurs. As good as the Spurs are - very good - they don’t match up well against the Warriors. They are slow and methodical and old, and Stephen Curry owns San Antonio point guard Tony Parker, who is in decline.

No other team on the Warriors schedule is a dire threat. I kept reading about how one team or another would “pose a challenge” to the Warriors or could “derail” the Warriors on their way to 73.

I would find myself schlepping to the arena to see the Spurs - a challenge - or the Thunder - a derailer. And the Warriors crushed them and all other pretenders.

The Warriors have answered every question and there is no reason to think they suddenly will run out of answers. I’m saying the Warriors will set a new NBA single-season winning record.

Except for this. Steve Kerr is a savvy coach. The way he thinks is reasonable; a pleasure, actually. He understands the season is almost over but the playoffs are a second grueling season. He will take the long view and rest his players even if it means not winning 73.

He will take care of injured players like Andre Iguodala instead of rushing them back for an arbitrary number, which is really just a number.

He wants to secure home-court advantage and he wants to win the championship and he won’t let the quest for 73 get in the way.

Everything in its proper perspective. A sign of maturity.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.