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Warriors Win Despite Being Tested At Home By Wizards, Pull Another Game Closer To NBA Regular Season Record

By William Gomez
Published on: 20:59 PST, Mar 29, 2016

It wasn’t easy Tuesday night for Golden State; but to say that the Warriors’ ability to get this far into an NBA regular season with only seven losses has been anything but easy might be an astronomical understatement.

In a league where each player is a professional — and paid like a professional — to come out and perform to their highest potential, the Warriors have managed to perform — like professionals — better than any other of the 29 NBA teams through the course of the past two seasons.

The race to 73 continued Tuesday night at Oracle Arena in Oakland, a place where the home team has failed to lose in the past 53 games coming into Tuesday’s matchup against a Washington Wizards team that is fighting for a playoff spot in the Eastern conference with fewer than ten games remaining in the regular season.

And despite Washington’s best shot to take down the reigning champs, the Golden State Warriors managed to walk away from Tuesday’s matchup with a 102-94 victory behind their superstar Steph Curry’s 26 points.

The Warriors now move to 54-0 at home dating back to last season, and more importantly, stay one game ahead of the pace of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who currently hold the NBA regular season record, 72-10.

With Tuesday’s win over the Wizards, the Warriors matched their win total from last year and can afford to lose two of their last eight games in order to crown themselves the new NBA regular season record holders.

“A lot of things have gone our way this year,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr acknowledged, “and the guys have done an amazing job, coming off of last year, focusing on getting better and trying to continue the rise.” He added, “It’s not easy to do in this league, takes a lot of energy, so I’m really proud of them for how they’ve competed.”

The Warriors had to fight early for number 67.

Down 10 in the closing minutes of the first half, the Wizards had the Warriors right where they wanted them going into the intermission.

But Washington quickly learned what so many NBA teams have experienced first-hand this season: there’s never a given with this Warriors team, even when they appear to be having a bad game.

In the closing minutes of the half, Curry ignited a run that would keep the Wizards in the rear-view mirror for the remainder of the game. A corner three from Curry, a Peyton Manning-eque pass to Shaun Livingston for a game-tying jam, and next thing you know, Steph is putting up a three as the half expired to put his Warriors up three.

Curry went into the half with 18 points, going 4 for 6 from three-point range, outdueling Wizards SG Bradley Beal, who was doing his best to upset the historic Warriors team with 15 points of his own in the half. Beal only ended up with 17 for the game.

The Wizards tried to keep it close, with the Warriors playing sluggishly, but just couldn’t get over the hump when they needed to and eventually saw the Warriors’ lead balloon to double digits in the fourth quarter.

Draymond Green had his usual stat-filled performance with 15 points, 16 rebounds, and nine assists, barely missing out on a back-to-back triple-double for a Warriors team that become only the second team in NBA history to win 67 games in consecutive seasons (Bulls).

The Warriors take their run at history to Utah on Wednesday and follow that game up with four consecutive games at home, two of which feature teams that the Warriors have lost to this season (Portland and San Antonio).

The Wizards continue their fight for a playoff spot Wednesday in Sacramento.

(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

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Basketball NBA Washington Wizards Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry
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