The wrong end of 73 and 9

MANILA, Philippines — The first and foremost reason why I want the Golden State Warriors to win over the Cleveland Cavaliers is because of their immaculate 73-9 record.

The reason why I don’t want the Warriors to lose?

It’s for the same record.

The Cleveland Cavaliers finally gave their city its first championship. The championship also avenged their 2015 loss to the Warriors. Finals MVP Lebron James once stated that Cleveland would have won over Golden State if only Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were healthy.

Down 1-3 in the 2016 NBA Finals, Cleveland shocked the world by handing the Dubs three straight losses.

No question, the Cavaliers deserve the victory. They played better and properly exuded grace under pressure and they kind of showed why the traditional team setup still worked. All of a sudden, we see the importance of Andrew Bogut. We also need to check out the unfortunate chain of events that led to the suspension of Draymond Green. Whether you think Bogut is irrelevant, he would have given Golden State a proper Plan B just like how David Lee gave Warriors a different look during their initial title run.

This is Lebron James’ third title but this is his first with the Cavaliers. When Lebron made The Decision to move his talents to South Beach, Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert hexed him. Gilbert said James will never win a title with the Miami Heat. While I’m glad to know that Gilbert doesn’t know voodoo, at least James and Gilbert are in good terms now – and I bet they’ll even get chummy with the title win.

Cleveland can lose this series and still win it a season later. Their biggest quandary isn’t as dire as the problem Golden State is now facing. What GSW is suffering at the moment is a fate worse than an eighth seed punishing the first seed. LA, Boston, Washington (one as Baltimore), Detroit (two as Fort Wayne), Philadelphia, New York, Oklahoma City (two as Seattle), and even Golden State have lost three title showdowns. The Cavs are in good company. In terms of cities with no titles, the Jazz and Clipper organizations have yet to win a NBA title. Meanwhile ever since moving to their current location, the Kings and Hawks are blanked as well.   

But what about Golden State?

The Lakers posted a 69-13 record in 1972 and they won the title. The Chicago Bulls posted a 72-10 record and they won the championship as well. Getting their records displaced had a title as consolation. Actually, getting the highest win record is more of a bonus.

This is more of a blessing than a curse if you think about it.

Golden State lost nine games during the regular season. The names that one-upped Golden State in the recently-concluded season are the Milwaukee Bucks, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, and Minnesota Timberwolves. Of the nine teams, the Wolves, Lakers, Nuggets, and Bucks were lottery squads. Now imagine if the Warriors won over these four teams (or at least two of them) they could have possibly evaded the risk of wear and tear.

Instead they fought the last days of the regular season as if they were in the playoffs. If you check out the Warriors’ reaction when they defeated the lowly Memphis Grizzlies, it was as if they won the NBA championship. If we’re going to treat the record as “bonus”, then Golden State messed up their hopes by becoming greedy.

Now just like Golden State and possibly the whole world, we can’t treat the events of the regular season as a precursor to their Finals loss.

But it did.

If the Warriors never won 73 games... wait... if the Warriors never tried to claim the all-time record, then the Warriors wouldn’t have this huge amount of pressure burdening their playoff run. During their last five encounters in the regular season, the Cavs won against Milwaukee and Atlanta but lost to Indiana, Chicago, and Detroit. When the Warriors were creaming Memphis, Cleveland lost their last game – in which they rested Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love. James actually played just three of their last five regular season games as if to tell people that Cleveland is prepping their selves for the playoffs. San Antonio did the same as well as Oklahoma City and the Detroit Pistons.

The 73 games also gave GSW the aura of high expectations. It was like Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are defusing a bomb and Steve Kerr just let a lot of outsiders enter so they can witness their “heroism”. When the Cavaliers swept Detroit and Atlanta, the whole world were looking at Golden State’s Game Three loss against the Houston Rockets, Golden State’s Game Three loss against the Portland Trail Blazers, and Golden State’s Game Three loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Come to think of it, Golden State also lost their Game Three match against Cleveland.

So that’s consistency for you.

Golden State’s 73-win feat is a good thing but every record will state that the Dubs lost their title to Cleveland. I wonder how long the Warriors can endure this curse. Yes, I know 73-9 is a wonderful feat but it will always have an asterisk. If history serves us right, the next all-time win record could be two decades from now – long after the retirements of the architects of this Golden State push.

But then, maybe there’s a big enough payback in the works. A year after the Lakers had a 69-13 record, the Boston Celtics went on with 68-14. The Celtics lost in the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Knicks. A year after the Bulls won 72-10, they would tie the 71-72 Lakers’ 69-13 record to score another title. If again, history serves us right – the Warriors will have a big enough push to threaten the record they established.

And perhaps, that would be their opportunity to get this curse off their system.