The Minnesota Timberwolves pulled a shocking upset against the league-leading Golden State Warriors last Tuesday night, 124-117 in overtime. Now, the chances of the Warriors beating the 95-96 Chicago Bulls record gets slimmer.
The Dubs can no longer afford to lose a game as that would be their tenth loss, and the best record they can finish this season will go down to 72-10, just enough to tie the Michael Jordan-led Bulls record.
The Warriors are now left with four games against the Memphis Grizzlies and the San Antonio Spurs, twice. Looking at both squads, the Grizzlies' roster has been riddled with injuries with Marc Gasol and Mike Conley likely out until the end of this season.
The Spurs, meanwhile, is projected as the Warriors' opponent in the Western Conference Finals so it is expected to be a highly-contested ball game from the get-go. Initially, it was reported that SA head coach Gregg Popovich will rest all his key players Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, LaMarcus Aldridge and Tony Parker.
However, following their win against the Utah Jazz, Spurs point guard Parker said that their head coach might just change his mind and opt to insert them in the rotation in both games against the Warriors.
"Like I said, before the Utah game, I thought [Popovich] was going to rest everybody," Parker said in an interview with Yahoo Sports. "He said he wanted to play. So if we played Utah, I don't see any reason now we're not going to play Golden State. Before, we were going to rest everybody like against Utah and Golden State. But I guess he changed his mind. Everybody's playing now."
Meanwhile, the Warriors camp might have just given up on their pursuit to break the record. Forward Draymond Green said in a post-game interview with ESPN that it's getting quite a bit boring and they are just cruising through the 82-game season.
"It's human nature to where, all right, kind of ready for the regular season to end. Talking 82 games, we get bored with that after awhile," Green said in the interview. "And that's no excuse, just, I'm always give it to y'all real, and that's about as real as I can be. It's kind of at a point now where you're ready for the regular season to be over."
Here are some highlights of the game between the Warriors and the Spurs last March 19. The Spurs defeated the Warriors, 87-79.