duncan228
12-28-2008, 01:47 AM
Celtics’ losses may ruin chance at mark (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Celtics_losses_may_ruin_chance_at_mark.html)
Mike Monroe - Express-News
All that talk about the Boston Celtics threatening the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ all-time best record of 72-10 stopped abruptly late Friday night after the defending champions blew a fourth-quarter lead and lost to the Golden State Warriors.
A team that headed to the West Coast with a 27-2 record suddenly has its first losing streak of the season, and 72 wins seems like an impossible dream.
I don’t care how drained the Celtics insist they were after that over-hyped Christmas Day showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center. You don’t blow a 14-point fourth quarter lead against a team that had won only eight of 30 previous games.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers had done his best to downplay the significance of his team’s 19-game winning streak that preceded its Christmas Day loss.
“Hell, we’ve had some games we could’ve lost in this stretch,” he told reporters before that game. “I don’t even pay much attention to that (streak).”
Here is something for Celtics loyalists to consider if another win streak ensues that gets that 72-win talk re-started: The ’95-96 Bulls had only one two-game losing streak, falling to the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns on a Western trip in February.
Chicago had win streaks of 18 and 13 games that season and didn’t lose its seventh game until March 10.
If the Celtics lose only three more before March 10, well, maybe the league should start engraving another Larry O’Brien Trophy for them.
The end of Chicago’s 18-game streak in 1996 was hastened by some late night carousing. The Bulls had gone to Denver having won 31 of their previous 32 games to play a Sunday game against a Denver team that wasn’t as horrid as the Warriors have been this season but had won only 18 of 44.
Having a Saturday night off in Denver was too tempting for several key players, who were spotted at a convenience store buying junk food around 3 a.m. Little wonder, then, they fell behind the Nuggets by 28 the next night, too big a deficit for even Michael Jordan to overcome.
Mike Monroe - Express-News
All that talk about the Boston Celtics threatening the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ all-time best record of 72-10 stopped abruptly late Friday night after the defending champions blew a fourth-quarter lead and lost to the Golden State Warriors.
A team that headed to the West Coast with a 27-2 record suddenly has its first losing streak of the season, and 72 wins seems like an impossible dream.
I don’t care how drained the Celtics insist they were after that over-hyped Christmas Day showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center. You don’t blow a 14-point fourth quarter lead against a team that had won only eight of 30 previous games.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers had done his best to downplay the significance of his team’s 19-game winning streak that preceded its Christmas Day loss.
“Hell, we’ve had some games we could’ve lost in this stretch,” he told reporters before that game. “I don’t even pay much attention to that (streak).”
Here is something for Celtics loyalists to consider if another win streak ensues that gets that 72-win talk re-started: The ’95-96 Bulls had only one two-game losing streak, falling to the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns on a Western trip in February.
Chicago had win streaks of 18 and 13 games that season and didn’t lose its seventh game until March 10.
If the Celtics lose only three more before March 10, well, maybe the league should start engraving another Larry O’Brien Trophy for them.
The end of Chicago’s 18-game streak in 1996 was hastened by some late night carousing. The Bulls had gone to Denver having won 31 of their previous 32 games to play a Sunday game against a Denver team that wasn’t as horrid as the Warriors have been this season but had won only 18 of 44.
Having a Saturday night off in Denver was too tempting for several key players, who were spotted at a convenience store buying junk food around 3 a.m. Little wonder, then, they fell behind the Nuggets by 28 the next night, too big a deficit for even Michael Jordan to overcome.