Off to a 37-3 start to the season entering the weekend, which had them tied for the best 40-game start in NBA history, the Golden State Warriors have dominated most basketball conversations.
But amid the justifiable praise, and the ever-increasing expectations, the Warriors will have to watch their backs if they want to head into the postseason with home-court advantage. The San Antonio Spurs are hot on their trail. And for these two teams, there is no place like home.
It seems almost unbelievable that a team that started 24-0 — the previous record for wins to start a season was 14 — could have any real competition. But while the Warriors have fought through significant injuries to keep pace with the 72-win Chicago Bulls of 1995-96, the Spurs have refused to go away, and with Golden State’s 113-95 loss to Detroit on Saturday, which dropped its record to 37-4, its lead for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference shrank to two games.
Given how well both the Warriors and the Spurs have played, their four head-to-head matchups — the first of which will be in Oakland, California, on Jan. 25 — could easily decide who gets the No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs. The difference between Nos. 1 and 2 may not seem all that extreme, but for a pair of teams that have yet to lose at home, gaining home-court advantage throughout the playoffs could be the difference between playing in the NBA finals and ending the season early.
Amusingly, it was the Spurs, not the defending-champion Warriors, who entered the season with more buzz. Fresh off a 55-win season — the team’s 15th in a row with at least 50 — and only a year removed from winning an NBA title, the Spurs had an offseason for the ages by re-signing Tim Duncan, Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard while finding a way to add LaMarcus Aldridge and David West as free agents.
The remade Spurs did not start quite as strongly as the Warriors, losing two of their first five games, but since then they have gone 32-4. More important, they have been unbeatable at home, with a winning streak at AT&T Center in San Antonio that includes all 23 games this season and nine more to close last season.
But just as the Spurs are unbeatable at home, so, too, are the Warriors, who are 19-0 at Oracle Arena this season and have won 37 straight home games going back to last season.
Predictably, the teams are chasing Michael Jordan’s Bulls for the longest home winning streak over multiple seasons. The Bulls set the NBA record with their 44th consecutive home win in April 1996 before losing two of their final four home games at the end of their record-setting season.
Expectations will be high when the teams play each other, but the most interesting aspect should be which one dictates the pace of the game. Depending on how skeptical you are of listed heights, the Spurs may start four players who are taller than Draymond Green, the Warriors’ center in crunch time. The bigger players, while remarkably effective and efficient, tend to slow the game down, with the Spurs averaging 93.9 possessions per 48 minutes, a mark that ranks 24th in the NBA. In contrast, the Warriors had averaged 99.3 possessions per 48 minutes, entering Saturday, a mark that had them trailing only the Sacramento Kings.
To portray the upcoming games as offense versus defense would be unfair to the Spurs’ offense and the Warriors’ defense. According to offensive and defensive ratings, statistics tracked by Basketball-Reference.com that account for the disparate pace of the teams, the Warriors feature the game’s top offense and the fifth-ranked defense. The Spurs have the top defense and the third-ranked offense.
The games will, however, be big versus small and slow versus fast. They will feature the two most efficient-shooting teams in the NBA and better ball movement on both sides than you can find anywhere else. And if one of the teams were to trip up at home, that could end up being what decides the top seed in the conference.
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