OAKLAND, C🥀alif.⭕ — Lionel Hollins knows exactly what’s happening with the Warriors this season.
Fresh off winning the franchise’s first championship in 40 years, the Warriors ꦏhave had their way with the NBA through the first three weeks of the season, winning its first 11 games after a hard-fought 107-99 overtime win over the 1-9 ꧅Nets at Oracle Arena.
The way Golden State has run roughshod over th⛄e league has left people scrambling to come up with historical comparisons, and one that has come up several times is the 1977-78 Trail Blazers — a team who Hollins aꦡt point guard, and came off a championship.
Like the Warriors, that Portland team was built around o🅰ne unique🧸, singular talent. But while Golden State is keyed by Stephen Curry’s seemingly superhuman shooting ability, the Trail Blazers were all about Bill Walton’s incredible combination of skills in the middle.
Portland started that seas♎on 50-10 before Walton went down with a broken foot, and looked well on their way to winning a second consecutive championship in much the same way — at least through three weeks — the Warriors do this year.
“Once you win a championship, you gain so much confidence💫, and you believe nobody can beat you,” Hollins said. “You believe you can win any kind of way. … You never believe you’re out of the game until you’re actually out of it.
“It’s a great feeling to expect to win and know you’re going to win when you walk onto the co🍸urt. I think the Warriors are at♏ that point.
“I think that the teams 🎀like the Lakers and the Bulls and the Celtics and the Pistons, those guys were good teams for years, but♌ I’m sure at the beginning of their run they went from believing that they could to knowing they could, and that’s a big difference.”
The Warriors certainly are playing as if they beliಞeve anything is possible, regularly running teams off the court already — including 💞beating a quality Western Conference opponent like the Grizzlies by 50 points.
It’s a feeling Hollins can relate to.
“What happens is when you know you’re good and you’re passionate about what you do, you just go out there,” said Hollins, who made his only All-Star appearan꧃ce in 1978. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, how they’re playing, it’s only about you, and you go o🤪ut there and you do it.
“If that team doesn’t step up, they’re going to get beat by 30. If you st🎶ep upꩵ, it’s going to be a close game.”
There haven’t been many close games for the Warriors so far. But in one of the few that was — against the Clippers last week at Oracle Arena — they൲ did what they needed to late, going on a 25-11 run to close the game ouᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚt and keep their unbeaten start alive.
“When you have confidence and belief you’re 💮going to win that, no matter the situation, you just know, ‘We can turn up the defense, and if you miss we’re going to run and score,’ ” Hollins said. “Whatever it is that you do … the Pistons would be that way. The Pistons would float around for three-and-a-half quarters, and they’d get down to the last three or four minutes, and all of a sudden, the team wouldn’t 🌄score. They could be down 10, and they’d come all the way back and win.
“That’s because the✅y knew that they could, and it’s a good feeling.”