The Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics face each other Thursday night, and it will be a rare occurrence. The Warriors have played 322 games since the start of the 2014-15 season (counting playoffs), and all but six of them have come against teams with a worse record. Six out of 322!
The Warriors have played teams with a better record just 6 times in their last 322 games
When 11-3 Golden State and 13-2 Boston face each other on Thursday, it will be their seventh.
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Thursday will be the seventh. The 13-2 Celtics will put their 13-game winning streak on the line against the 11-3 Warriors.
Here are all the games that the Warriors have played in the past four seasons against teams with a better record than them.
Feb. 6, 2015: 39-8 Warriors vs. 41-9 Hawks
Nov. 3, 2016: 3-1 Warriors vs. 4-0 Thunder
Oct. 21, 2017: 1-1 Warriors vs. 1-0 Grizzlies
Oct. 25, 2017: 2-2 Warriors vs. 3-2 Raptors
Oct. 27, 2017: 3-2 Warriors vs. 4-1 Wizards
Oct. 30, 2017: 4-3 Warriors vs. 4-1 Clippers
Nov. 16, 2017: 11-3 Warriors vs. 13-2 Celtics
(Note that we’ve ignored games that the Warriors had an identical record as their opponent, and also games where both teams were undefeated, regardless of whether or not the opponent had more wins.)
Five of the seven have come this season, thanks to a 1-2 start to the Warriors season. Another came last year when Oklahoma City started undefeated and Golden State lost its season opener. These games are basically meaningless. They all came within two weeks of the season.
The latest time the Warriors played a team with a better record than them this late in the season was that Feb. 6 meeting against Atlanta. The Hawks won 60 games that season in a brilliant-but-unsustainable year that came out of nowhere. When the two teams met in early February, the Hawks were fresh off their undefeated month (17-0) of January. Atlanta even won that matchup, too, although the Warriors beat them in the rematch a month later.
That brings us to Celtics-Warriors
Boston’s strong start — after dropping their first two, and after losing Gordon Hayward, and even after some further injury problems — is surprising. The Celtics are a well-constructed team, but they’ve also taken advantage of an easy schedule and possibly overperforming young players. (That’s not to say Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are flukes, but the rookie wall and sophomore slump could catch up to them eventually.)
All that’s to say: Are the Celtics legitimate challengers for the Warriors yet? Maybe not right now. But they have a better record than them, and in the four years since Golden State became a dynasty, that’s almost impossible to do.
