Because of the long time from their first loss of the season to their win against the Phoenix Suns, it seemed the Golden State Warriors were in some sort of crisis. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Warriors beat the Suns 128-103 with another huge third quarter explosion, and overall outscoring the Suns 79-37 in the third and second quarters. Klay Thompson, back after a short injury spell, led the way with 43 points, including 15-of-22 from the field and 8-of-13 from beyond the arc. He scored 27 points in the third quarter, in what feels like the norm now, and not something that is more or less record breaking for everyone else.
But the Warriors aren’t everyone else. The only teams comparable to them are maybe the San Antonio Spurs, who are on an impressive run of their own (while the Warriors are beginning a new one for themselves), and perhaps the Cleveland Cavaliers, but this is more of an assumption of what they can do when Kyrie Irving is back and they’ve run a while with their full lineup. Right now, as the Warriors improved to 25-1, there’s no one that comes close to what they’ve been doing.
The Warriors have two games marked on their schedule for the next few days: A revenge game against the Milwaukee Bucks at home, which is how a team that’s beating almost everyone so easily like the Warriors keeps themselves motivated, and a Christmas home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers; a rematch of the NBA finals, although there couldn’t be a clearer favorite than the Warriors right now heading into that game.
The NBA has set up the more difficult Western games for the Warriors in 2016: Three games with the Oklahoma City Thunder, four with the Spurs. Until then, there’s a very good chance we’re going to see them building up another streak, as the loss against the Bucks served to do one thing: Refocus a team that slightly started to miss some of their notes in this magnificent basketball symphony so far this season, making them perhaps more dangerous than before.