While the Warriors’ season is on hold, we at KNBR are rewinding the tape for every day the Warriors would have played a game this season. Four years ago today, the Golden State Warriors continued their march toward the NBA’s all-time best regular season record against a pesky Dallas Mavericks team fighting for a playoff spot.
It was peak Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
Curry (10 assists, 9 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 turnover) was one board shy of a triple-double, along with his 31 points, while Klay Thompson went for 39 on 14-of-22 (and a stellar 10-of-15 from 3-pt). Harrison Barnes chipped in 20, and Draymond Green and Marreese Speights had 15 and 13 points, respectively.
It was a relatively close game until the Warriors started to pull away late thanks to a 9-2 solo run by Thompson.
The better story
But that’s not the most interesting win the Warriors have had on March 18. This is a two-for-one, thanks to the lack of readily-available NBA footage from before the 2005-06 season. The crown of most interesting game goes to March 18, 2005, but it requires jogging the memory and/or imagination.
That’s when Baron Davis, Jason Richardson and Derek Fisher and a mostly hapless Warriors team, stunned the NBA’s best in the Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire Suns. There’s no game film available on the internet, but there is box score and play-by-play recap.
Sure, that 2015-16 Warriors regular season was fun, but it doesn’t have the nostalgia-inducing household names of folks like Adonal Foyle (4 points, 5 rebounds, 1 steal and 3 fouls in 31:30), Žarko Čabarkapa (8 points on 4-of-8, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turnovers in 18:38), Troy Murphy (4 points on 2-of-7, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 3 fouls in 19:32) and genuine legend Andris Biedriņš (6 points on 3-of-8, 6 rebounds, 1 block, 4 fouls in 16:30).
You also had the two Mikes on the wing in Mickaël Piétrus (6 points on 2-of-6, 0-of-2 from 3-pt, 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turnovers in 16:07) and Mike Dunleavy (11 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, 1 turnover 3 fouls in 32:35).
But this was a team that was at its best when its guards were dominant. Even with 28 points from Shawn Marion, 31 from Stoudemire and 15 from Joe Johnson, the Warriors kept Nash (12 points on 3-of-8, 13 assists) mostly in check.
Baron Davis had 33 points, while Fisher (3 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover, 5 fouls) and Richardson (10 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 turnover, 1 foul) both had 19. The Warriors would go on to beat the soon-to-be 62-20 Suns by a score of 110-100, while finishing the season 34-48. They did the same in the following season before the We Believe Warriors shocked the Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs in 2007.
That 2005 win in Phoenix would be the last time the Warriors beat the Suns in Arizona until February 22, 2012, when Monta Ellis hat 26 points and scored a 106-104 game-winner with a second remaining (and Curry strained a tendon in his foot).