SAN FRANCISCO — As the Golden State Warriors approached the last of eight straight games at home Friday night against the Chicago Bulls, coach Steve Kerr recalled the wisdom of the first person for whom he played in the NBA.
Kerr’s coach as a rookie with the Phoenix Suns, the legendary Cotton Fitzsimmons, preached the importance of the final game on a homestand.
“He used to talk about the getaway game, how important the getaway game was before you head out on a trip, to win that last home game,” Kerr said this week, after Golden State had already strung together a 6-1 record during the lengthy home stretch.
That was all the motivation the Warriors needed to send the Bulls parting as 119-93 losers and hit the road themselves carrying a seven-game winning streak and an NBA-best 11-1 record. All seven wins have come by double-digits, marking the longest such streak for any NBA team in at least the past four seasons, according to ESPN.
Kerr’s former coach wasn’t the only past figure to provide motivation for the present-day Warriors on Friday. Playing in front of his college coach, Stephen Curry paced the Warriors with a 40-point performance on 15-of-24 shooting, including 9 buckets from distance.
The Bulls brought the stiffest test of any of the eight opponents to pass through Chase Center the past two weeks and buried the Warriors in a double-digit first-half hole. In a matchup billed as two of the top defensive teams in the NBA, it was Golden State that was able to crack down in the second half.
After surrendering 29 points and falling behind by as many as 10 in the first quarter, the Warriors kept Chicago in the teens in each of the following two periods to take control of the game.
A running layup by Draymond Green sparked a run for the Warriors toward the end of the first quarter, and a soaring Gary Payton II threw down a reverse slam to put the Warriors ahead for good, 35-34, about 5 minutes into the second quarter.
Andre Iguodala punctuated a 35-17 third quarter by throwing down on a fastbreak to extend the lead to 81-59 with just over a minute left in the period. He added another exclamation point with a running one-handed slam in the lane that made it 96-69 midway through the fourth.
The matchup pitted Golden State’s second-rated offense against Chicago’s sixth-rated defense and the Bulls’ sixth-rated offense against the Warriors’ top-rated defense.
After falling behind 24-14 about eight minutes into the game, Golden State outscored Chicago 104-69 the rest of the way.
The Warriors’ eight games at home over the past two weeks tied the franchise record for the longest homestand. With seven wins in eight tries, it’s fair to say this one went better than the previous eight-gamer, from Jan. 24-Feb. 9, 2011, when they went 4-4.
However, as Green reminded the team earlier this week, the road ahead only gets tougher.
The Warriors capped their homestand with wins over Chicago and Atlanta, two teams expected to contend at the top of the Eastern Conference. However, their 11-1 record has come against the NBA’s easiest schedule.
—PORTER OK
Otto Porter Jr. exited the game with a right quad contusion midway through the first quarter and was designated questionable to return, but he was back in the game by the fourth quarter.
Porter drove to the hoop and lost control as he twisted and turned and eventually ended up on the ground beneath the basket, grabbing his right knee. Porter stayed down briefly but was eventually helped up and walked off the court, directly into the locker room, under his own power. He returned to the Warriors bench with ice on his right leg toward the end of the first half.
