Tim Duncan’s Career Dominance As Spurs Extend Winning Streak To 19

Despite coach Gregg Popovich‘s contempt for their win streak, the Spurs revved their engines enough Wednesday night for a 111-90 coasting win over a formidable Golden State Warriors team. It was win no. 19 in their streak, which is the 6th longest in NBA history. While the Spurs continue to roll over the NBA , Tim Duncan‘s dominance during his 17 years was displayed in an eye-opening graphic recently.

The Spurs hit 50 wins halfway through this current win streak, making it Duncan’s 16th 50-win season in 17 years. The only season the Spurs didn’t crack the 50-win plateau in every one of Duncan’s seasons, was in the strike-shortened 1998-99 season, when they went 37-13 and won Duncan’s first NBA title. So, um, how does Duncan’s hall-of-fame career stack up against other teams?

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Well then.

If you’re curious for more, SB Nation’s excellent Tom Ziller put together a handy chart showing how many 50-win seasons every NBA team has accomplished.

Back to last night’s dominating win over the Dubs: it was no. 19 during this winning streak, the longest in franchise history — though as we noted previously, they won 20 in a row during the 2011-12 season if you include the first 10 games of the playoffs.

Here are the top regular season winning streaks in league history, via the Express-News:

33 – L.A. Lakers, 1971-72
27 – Miami, 2012-13
22 – Houston, 2007-08
20 – Washington Capitols, 1947-48/1948-49
20 – Milwaukee, 1970-71
19 – L.A. Lakers, 1999-2000
19 – Boston, 2007-08
19 – SPURS, 2013-14
18 – Five tied

During that stretch, the Spurs have outscored opponents by 16.8 points per game, while possessing the league’s No. 1 offense, (112.6 points per 100 possessions) and No. 1 defense (96.4 points per 100 possessions), per NBA.com.

Last night they shot 53 percent and held the Dubs to 42 percent from the floor while jumping out to another double-digit, 31-18, first-quarter lead and never turning back as they won each successive quarter after that. There isn’t even a word for how well they’ve been playing, but supremacy, superiority, ascendancy, preeminence, predominance, domination, and mastery all fit the tone of this team right now, and we can’t think of a team in either conference that stands a chance in a 7-game series. So much for their post-Finals hangover many predicted this season.

Tonight, the Spurs take on the No. 2 team in the West, Oklahoma City, on TNT. Given their 3 1/2 game lead over the Thunder, the national television audience, Pop’s thinly-veiled contempt for this winning streak, and the fact Pop’s done it before, don’t except to see Duncan, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili play for very long tonight — if they suit up at all.

Will Popovich keep his starters out vs. OKC tonight?

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @SpencerTyrel.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

×