Warriors' record-breaking 73rd win a victory for the ages

OAKLAND - The fans at Oracle Arena were so overjoyed Wednesday night they initiated a rare wave in the fourth quarter. They may have been waving goodbye to Michael Jordan and the 1995-96 Bulls, whose position of dominance was buried under a deluge of Stephen Curry 3-pointers.

Jordan and his former teammates spent the past 20 years celebrating their NBA-best 72-10 record, but the dazzling, boundary-stretching Warriors are now the gold standard. With a 125-104 win against the Memphis Grizzlies at raucous Oracle, Golden State secured a 73-9 mark. No NBA team has ever had a better regular season.

“Someone's gotta go 74-8. (But) I don't see it,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “And I hope our fans don't expect it.”

Now for something even more important: the postseason. The Warriors begin their title defense Saturday afternoon against the Houston Rockets, who claimed the No. 8 seed by beating Sacramento on Wednesday. Last year, the Warriors and Rockets faced off in the Western Conference Finals. This year, the top-seeded Warriors are expected to waltz past James Harden and friends.

First, though, the Warriors will take a little time to ponder how quickly they have become the greatest show in sports.

Four years ago, they wrapped up their season by losing to the San Antonio Spurs here. The Spurs, playoff bound, didn't play any of their stars that night. Golden State, bound for nothing but another gloomy offseason, finished the lockout-shortened campaign with a 23-43 record.

Four years? How can that be?

Wednesday night represented a completely different era, practically a different universe. Curry drained 10 3-pointers and scored 46 points, and the Warriors ran the overmatched Grizzlies off the court. Even on the night of Kobe Bryant's finale with the Lakers, most eyes were on the Bay Area.

Curry, the reigning (and soon-to-be repeat) NBA most valuable player, came into the game needing eight treys to become the first player to hit 400 in a season. He hit six of them during a stunning first quarter, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Curry finished the period with 20 points as the Warriors raced to a 37-23 lead they would never relinquish.

“I know he wanted to get those eight,” Golden State forward Mo Speights said. “So once he got a couple going, it was over. It's just a circus, just a show to see him play out there every night.”

Curry wasn't simply camped along the arc all game, either. Early in the third quarter, he dropped in a ridiculous toss while turning his body away from the basket in traffic. A moment later he drew a charge against Jordan Farmar. Seconds after that, Curry hit a running scoop shot from 6 feet. Later in the quarter, he dribbled toward the 3-point line, drawing two defenders with him, then whipped a pass inside to Andre Iguodala for an easy basket.

If the taste of 73-9 was bittersweet for any of the Warriors, it was Kerr. He was a long-range shooter off the bench for those 1996 Bulls. Now he can say he was a part of the two greatest regular seasons in pro basketball.

“It feels different as a coach than it did as a player,” Kerr said. “But in terms of the way the respective seasons went, it's almost identical: lose one, get angry, win 10. That's kind of the formula.”

The Grizzlies, humbled in a 50-point loss to Golden State in early November, had played the Warriors tough at Memphis last Saturday, losing 100-99 after missing a couple of late jumpers. And with Dallas losing earlier Wednesday, the Grizzlies had something to play for. Beat the Warriors and they would jump to the No. 6 seed in the West, which would mean playing Oklahoma City in the first round rather than San Antonio.

But the Warriors ran circles around Memphis this time. By halftime they had 31 fast-break points. The visitors had two. Some of those Golden State fast breaks ended with Curry or Thompson hitting a wide-open 3-pointer.

The halftime score was 70-50, which might have passed for a final score back in Jordan's day. The key run came in the first quarter, right after Zach Randolph scored on a driving layup to give the Grizzlies a 14-12 lead with 7:09 on the clock. That would be Memphis' largest lead of the game. Golden State proceeded to outscore Memphis 15-2 over the next 3:22, Curry capping the spree with three consecutive 3-pointers. The shortest of the three was 27 feet.

Down the stretch, there was a tension between setting the wins record and setting up for a healthy playoff run. On Wednesday, those routes came together.

“Today before the game Coach just said, ‘Let's go get it. Let's play our brand of basketball, let's set the tone for the playoffs,'” Speights said. “And that's what we did.”