Warriors break Celtics 2008-2009 mark for best ever record entering Christmas Day

The Golden State Warriors defeated the Utah Jazz last night to improve to 27-1 on the season. In doing so, they narrowly edged out the 2008-09 Boston Celtics for the best record of all time heading into Christmas Day. The Celtics were 27-2 that year, so despite having the same amount of wins as this season's Warriors, they were bested in winning percentage.

Having a record this good at Christmas is a pretty good indicator of something special going on, as of the top 4 records by Christmas prior to this year's Warriors, 3 of those teams were champions, with the one exception unfortunately being our 2008-09 Boston Celtics.

While the Warriors are having a hell of a season, their 24 straight wins to start the season being their highlight thus far, looking at that list brings such disappointment when you consider the track the 08-09 Celtics were on before Kevin Garnett's injury sidelined him.

Just take a look at the other teams. The Bulls finished with the greatest regular season record of all time at 72-10, Phil Jackson was the Coach of the Year, Michael Jordan was the MVP, and they won the NBA Championship.

The Lakers set a then record (only to be broken by those aforementioned Bulls) for best regular season finishing at 69-13. They set another record with a 33 game win streak, Bill Sharman (yes, that Bill Sharman) was the Coach of the Year, and they too won the NBA Championship.

The Rockets finished with a less impressive 58-24 record, but they had Hakeem Olajuwon. He happened to win the MVP and the Defensive Player of the Year that season, and yes the Rockets also won the NBA Championship that season.

The Celtics were coming off that magical 2008 NBA Championship, and were running through the league. Most of the team returned, they were entering the 2nd year of the new Big 3 era, the team and coach had completely gelled, and they looked like the best team in the league.

After KG's injury in Utah at the end of February, they were a still a very good team, but obviously not the monster that they were with him. While they did leave us with one of the best playoff series of all time vs. Chicago in the first round (7 game series, 4 games went to OT, 7 total overtimes, Rondo was .7 assists per game shy of averaging a triple double while dueling Derek Rose, and Ray Allen dropped 51 in the triple OT game 6), without KG they weren't able to get by the Orlando Magic in the semifinals, who they fell to in 7 games.

That KG injury put a stop to what was on track to be a very special team, and possibly even better than the 2008 team that won the title. The Celtics came out motivated that season, more motivated than most teams coming off a title, and I see a lot of that in this year's Warriors too. Hopefully for their sake, they have better luck.


Top Photo Credit: AP Photo/Stephan Savoia


Bottom Photo Credit: Elsa/Getty Images


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