Last season, the Golden State Warriors jumped out to a 5-1 start and everyone started paying a little more attention to that inner warning signal to never rule out a champion. They then lost seven of their next eight and never seemed to fully recover over the course of a disjointed season that culminated in a loss in the Play-In Tournament.
So here we are again, with Golden State sitting at 4-1. It’s tough to call this completely surprising considering the schedule strength, or lack thereof. The Warriors opened the season with wins over the Blazers and Jazz , two of the worst teams in the league.
That said, they made a statement by winning those two game by a combined 77 points — an NBA record for the first two games of a season. After a loss to the Clippers in which Stephen Curry had to leave with what turned out to be a peroneal strain in his left ankle (which has kept him out since), the Warriors were able to knock off the Pelicans on consecutive nights at home.
The first win against New Orleans was impressive as the Warriors pulled it off after falling behind by 20 and without the services of Curry, Andrew Wiggins and De’Anthony Melton . The second win, at first glance, perhaps looked less impressive with the Pelicans being down Dejounte Murray , CJ McCollum , Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones. But Golden State was also without Curry, Wiggins and Melton again, and besides that, it’s tough to beat any NBA team on back-to-back nights.