The Golden State Warriors have started off their championship defense pretty much as well as you could possibly expect, going 3-0 against two expected playoff teams in New Orleans and Houston, and winning each game by at least 14 points. They’re largely the same team as last year, with tons of experience playing together and the reigning MVP (who might be even better than last year). They had 67 wins last season, so can they improve and crack 70 wins? What say you, Klay Thompson?
“That’s going to be a tough one,” Thompson said on a Google Hangouts Q&A with ShotTracker, a wearable tech company he partnered with. “We’ll try. There are so many good teams. We’ll try. We did get 67 wins last year, which was an amazing feat. We might be able to get 70. It’s going to depend a lot on health, obviously, and a lot of lucky bounces that go our way.”
Thompson’s thoughts on the matter are of a piece with the attitude Steve Kerr has brought to the Warriors: Quiet confidence, with a measure of self-deprecation so as to avoid appearing brash. (The brashness is reserved for Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut.) The Warriors are positioned as well as any team to get 70 wins, for the reasons laid out above, but the league around them may have gotten even better, and like Klay said, they have to stay as healthy as they did last season. The odds are against them, but it’s hard to remember that when you watch Stephen Curry bury teams by himself.
(Via Inside the Warriors)
