The Weekly Dish

Following the lead of Stephen Curry, the Warriors are getting better as the season goes on.

For the week of Tuesday, Mar. 24 – Monday, Mar. 30

One by one, the Warriors continue to cross off each subsequent item on their list of regular season goals. Within the last week, the Dubs not only locked up their first division title in 39 years, they also eclipsed the 60-win barrier for the first time in franchise history and clinched the top seed in the West before the calendar turned to April. In doing so, the Warriors became just the 13th team in NBA history to win 60 of its first 73 games. Of those previous 13 teams, 10 of them went on to reach the NBA Finals, with nine of them winning the Championship. They’ve held six of their last seven opponents under 100 points and boast a mind-boggling 40-0 record on the season when doing so. They’ve lost one home game since November 12th and, if they sweep their five remaining home games, they’ll sit behind only the 1985-86 Boston Celtics (40-1) as the best home team in league history. And yet, while they’ve been a dominant team all season long, the Dubs have cranked it up a notch within the last month, as hard to comprehend as that may be.

With 15 wins (and counting) in March, the Warriors have tied the franchise record for most wins in a single month, set back in January of 1960. They’ve won each of their last seven games by at least 13 points, becoming the sixth team in NBA history to do so and most recent since the 2011-12 San Antonio Spurs. Over their last four games, a stretch in which they’ve had an average margin of victory of 20.3 points, they’ve demolished the opposition by a combined score of 130-69 in the third quarter alone. It’s been almost four weeks since they lost a game with all starters in uniform, and they’ve lost only seven games all season in which Andrew Bogut has played. Extrapolating that pace out to a full 82-game season, the Dubs would theoretically finish 72-10 and tie the best single-season record of any team in NBA history. While it’s understandable to question if perhaps the Warriors have peaked too early, I’d argue that there is little evidence to support they’ve peaked at all yet. It’s easy to forget that Steve Kerr and his coaching staff took the reigns less than 11 months ago, and their improvement in performance as a cohesive, steamrolling unit seems to go hand-in-hand with the passage of time. And, with still nine games remaining in the regular season and an opportunity to lock up home court advantage throughout the playoffs, the Dubs have left themselves plenty of time to work out any kinks and assure that they are peaking when they truly need to be.

Once again, the league has made my job easy on me in selecting Curry as the Western Conference Player of the Week. Surely if he qualifies for that honor, he deserves to be recognized in this space as well. Curry’s second Player of the Week award this season in addition to the three that fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson has garnered gives the Warriors a total of five weekly honors this season, the most ever in franchise history. In the four games last week, Curry averaged 30.0 points, 8.0 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.75 steals in 32.0 minutes while shooting 57.7 percent from the field and 63.2 percent (24-of-38) from three-point range. He sank at least five threes in all four games, the second time in his career he’s done that over a four-game stretch, with both occurrences having come this month. The 24 total threes also tied his career-best for most treys over a four-game span. Since the All-Star break, Curry is shooting 48.5 percent on two-pointers, 50.9 percent on threes and 96.3 percent from the free throw line. Going back a little bit further, over his last 25 games, the Warriors’ star guard is averaging 24.9 points and 7.4 assists in only 32.4 minutes, while shooting 48.9 percent on – and here’s the impressive part - nine three-pointers per game. Those aren’t empty stats either, as the Dubs have gone 22-3 in those games. Curry has simply lit the nets on fire for the better part of the last two months, and once again he’s saving his best for the end of the season. Over the course of his career, Curry has shot 40.7 percent on three-pointers in December, 43.1 percent in January, 44.7 percent in February and now 47.0 percent in March. While you’d naturally expect him to grow fatigued as the season wears on, clearly it hasn’t affected his long-range shooting. With 247 made-threes on the season to-date and still nine games remaining, Curry would simply have to average 2.9 treys per game to break his own record for most three-pointers in a single season. He seems poised to eclipse the 272 he made last year, provided Steve Kerr doesn’t choose to sit him for a few games to rest up for what’s anticipated to be a deep postseason run.

It’s a good thing the Warriors have already locked up home court advantage throughout the Conference Finals, because the week ahead is a daunting one. Beginning tonight in Los Angeles, the Warriors play four games in six nights, three of which are on the road. The Warriors bring their current nine-game winning streak into Los Angeles tonight to take on the Clippers, and whenever these two rivals get together, there tends to be plenty of mutual hostility in the air. After the bout with the Clippers, the Dubs return home to take on the Suns on Thursday night. Sitting 4.5 games behind the eighth spot in the West, Phoenix has an extremely small margin of error to keep their dwindling playoff hopes alive. After that, the Warriors head back on the road for a weekend back-to-back in the Lone Star state. On Saturday, the Warriors will go for the season sweep of the Dallas Mavericks, followed by their final meeting with the always-dangerous San Antonio Spurs on Sunday afternoon. Despite the tough schedule, with their final magic number at five and the Warriors playing as well as they have all season, it’s quite possible the Dubs could cross off the only remaining significant regular season goal and lock up home court advantage throughout the entire playoffs by next week.

The Dish has been served.