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SAN FRANCISCO – The 2017 Warriors’ claim to being the most dominant team in NBA history survived a sturdy challenge Monday night.
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The Knicks ran off 13 consecutive playoff victories over the last month-plus, but came up short of Golden State’s record of 15 in a row, falling to the Spurs in Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
New York’s downfall could, in some part, be attributed to dumb fouls, a few missed rotations and a handful of lazy passes.
All it takes is one sloppy game, even from the best team in the league, for a historic winning streak to end, a starter on that 2017 Warriors team remarked.
“Once you get in the playoffs, you understand that the small details are so important,” Zaza Pachulia told the Bay Area News Group recently.
So what set those Warriors apart from the numerous other great outfits that have gone on to win titles in the years after?
Obviously, adding Kevin Durant in his prime to a unit coming off a 73-9 regular season with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green at the peaks of their powers had a lot to do with it. Motivation in the form of the blown 3-1 lead in the 2016 NBA Finals did, too, for the returning players.
But Pachulia emphasized that even such a talented team would not have won 15 consecutive playoff games without a talented coaching staff that included current Knicks coach Mike Brown.
“Mike is amazing and a great human being, so approachable and likeable,” Pachulia said. “He’s a player’s coach and he’s the type of guy you have to respect. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from or what kind of success you have, because he speaks everyone’s language.”
It was apparent from the outset – Pachulia signed with Golden State after Durant signed – that the team was destined to dominate, but he noted that it was Steve Kerr and the coaching staff who pushed the roster to maximise its talents.
“We hit a pretty good start, we won like 10 in a row (early in the season),” Pachulia said. “But the feeling and conversations from our coaching staff were, ‘I don’t think we’ve played the best brand of basketball.’ That was another wild moment. I was like, ‘What are we talking about?'”
It was that constant push to be the very best that propelled the Warriors from a dominant team to a buzzsaw that went on to a postseason record that may never be equaled.
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As Brown’s Knicks approached the record streak, comparisons naturally arose. After all, Jalen Brunson’s shotmaking and Karl-Anthony Towns’ well-rounded playmaking do resemble the skillset of certain Warriors stars. Pachulia pushed against the temptation to find similarities.
“I don’t like when people talk about comparisons. It’s not fair to Mike,” Pachulia said. “Brunson, hell of a player, but it’s not fair to compare him to Steph, and it’s not fair to Steph to compare him to Brunson. They’re different.”
Instead of comparing the teams, Pachulia wanted to focus on the great memories he made in the Bay Area.
“The talent we had, the team we had, we had several personalities we had, and the type of players and leadership, that resonated with the result we put out there,” Pachulia said. “It was so amazing, and so fun.”
Only a meaningless Game 4 victory for the Cavaliers prevented Golden State from being the only team in NBA history to go 16-0 in a postseason. The Warriors swept the Blazers, Jazz and Spurs.
“I played against some great teams, but I don’t think any team has had this type of firepower,” LeBron James said at the time. “So even when you’re playing well, you got to play like A-plus plus.”
But, a decade later, recalling the playoffs also brought back memories of his series-changing foul on the Spurs’ Kawhi Leonard. Pachulia closed out on Leonard’s jump shot in Game 1, and the superstar rolled his ankle as he landed on Pachulia’s foot.
The Warriors went on to sweep the Spurs, but what Pachulia remembered was the simultaneous torrent of vitriol that ensued. His sons were even held out of school for the next few days after threats were made against his family.
“The saddest part was that my family and wife were affected,” he said. “What does an 8-year-old kid have to do with this?”
Pachulia wanted to emphasize that moment was only one part of an otherwise tremendous year for him, both on the court and personally.
“Who cares what anyone else says outside of this locker room,” Pachulia remembered as the central message from the coaching staff. “Every meeting, every trip, every bus ride is with these guys. You’re part of this family.”
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This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 6:05 AM.