The Golden State Warriors lost to the Boston Celtics 109-106 at home Friday, bringing an end to an NBA-record 54-game home winning streak which started last season. The loss very well may prevent the now-68-8 Warriors from another NBA record with 73 regular season wins; however, until the champion has been decided (and all summer if the Warriors repeat and win it all), the team will continue to be compared to the current record holders—Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls.
Well, the media will continue to make the comparison. According to Pippen, the Warriors aren’t worthy to be brought up in conversation with what is widely considered the best team of all time.
“Bulls in four [games],” said the Hall of Famer when asked how the two teams would match up in a seven-game series. “I don’t think we’d take a night off. I think that my size and length would bother Steph a little bit.”
Pippen went on to say that he would limit Steph to 20 points, and MJ would shut down Klay Thompson.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was a point guard on the roster of that magical Bulls team, so he got the same question after his team’s most recent win, only he wasn’t having any of it.
“First of all, it’s a really hard question to answer,” said Kerr. “Not just because you’re comparing eras, but literally it’s tough for me to answer, grammatically, because I don’t know who ‘we’ is and who ‘they’ are. I’ll just say if the two teams play each other, there’s no question we can beat us, and they can beat them.”
Talk about beating around the bush. To be far, though, the question was damned if you do, damned if you don’t for Kerr as a part of both teams. He did, however, say that the refs nowadays would call that Bulls team for a lot more fouls than they ever received back then for playing tough defense.
Hey, maybe if the Warriors win it all and repeat as champs Pippen will lighten up. Or maybe he’s waiting for them to win three in a row…twice.