Kurtenbach: Contenders? Elite? There’s one thing we can certainly call these Warriors

The Warriors might very well be for real.

It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise after they went into Boston and beat the Celtics on Wednesday.

That’s a big-time win against the defending champions, and it was no fluke.

Of course, it’s the first full week of November. Eight games in is too early to make bold declarations about a nearly six-month-long NBA season.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Warriors guard Steph Curry, who has won everything there is to win in the sport, said Wednesday night.

But there is something we can say, with certainly, about these 2024-25 Warriors:

They’re refreshing.

The Warriors might lack a second star (as did the Celtics on Wednesday, with NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown sidelined), but they are making up for it with hustle, flow, and the power of friendship.

That might sound like a sarcastic dismissal of the Dubs’ start, but it’s anything but disparaging.

The Warriors are playing a style of basketball that is so rarely seen in the modern NBA. It’s almost antithetical to the popular perception of the league’s regular-season style. The Dubs are doing this strange thing where they’re playing hard on, like, every possession. They also play within systems on both ends of the court while showing an across-the-board and laudable understanding of roles.

And, get this: they seem to like playing with one another.

It’s a blast to watch.

You’d think this would be the norm at the professional rank, but this ego-free basketball is downright exceptional in the modern NBA. No, these Warriors almost seem collegiate compared to their peers, save that they’re not missing defensive rotations and roughly 100 3-pointers a game.

Now, the Celtics are an outstanding team, and they had the Warriors on the ropes in the fourth quarter on Wednesday. I — a fool — even texted our news group’s intrepid beat writer that the Warriors’ happy-go-lucky act had reached an endpoint, foiled by the defending champions and all their proven talent.

Instead, the Dubs were just getting started.

The Warriors trailed by one with just over four minutes to play Wednesday. They won by six, thanks to Curry’s brilliance, Buddy Hield’s quick release, and outstanding team defense, particularly on Celtics star Jason Tatum.

“They’re physical. They force you to fight through space. They have active hands,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzula said after the loss.

A reminder: This game was played on Nov. 6

Yes, Wednesday’s game was high-level basketball played with playoff-level energy. Forgive me for being a prisoner of the moment, but I’ve covered the NBA for over a decade, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen a contest that good and intense this early in a campaign. We’re usually waiting until the league’s unofficial start, Christmas (or is it Martin Luther King Jr. Day now?), for teams to ramp up to this level of play, and even then, it seems saved for nationally televised games.

Even in previous excellent starts for the Warriors in recent years — the fall of 2021 comes to mind — they didn’t seem this active, this focused.

Perhaps it’s because those past Dubs teams were more talented. They didn’t need to try as hard, night in and night out, to win. That would be a good problem to have, no doubt.

But many teams around the NBA that lack that kind of undeniable championship talent play that same lackadaisical way. Teams — some past Warriors squads included — openly treat the regular season as something you survive rather than 82 opportunities to compete. Instead of putting in the effort to play suffocating defense, squads are seemingly just scrimmaging to see who can put up more 3-pointers.

It’s not all that different than the NBA All-Star Game.

Which is to say it’s a scourge.

Now, to be fair, the Warriors aren’t alone in going hard night in and night out. The Dubs don’t have to single-handedly save the league like they did 10 seasons ago. No, the Celtics and Thunder deserve plaudits for their early-season effort, too. They’re not treating this first month of the season like the exhibition schedule, trying to figure things out. They’re trying to set a tone.

The Warriors, though, are refreshing because unlike those teams above, they didn’t enter the season with a realistic belief they could win the title. The Celtics were the bookmakers’ favorites to repeat. The Thunder had the fifth-shortest odds (though the shortest in my book).

But that’s no knock on the Dubs, who entered the season as 30-to-1 longshots to win Curry’s fifth title come June. (That number has been nearly halved in two-and-a-half weeks.)

It’s all the more reason to celebrate this strong start.

While the rest of the league manages loads and bides time, the Warriors are playing with an energy and verve that make watching their games—even early-November ones against the Wizards—must-see TV.

Yes, they’re playing every game like they have something to prove, and most nights, they are proving it.

Curry is, of course, right. The Warriors haven’t done anything yet. Strong Novembers are rarely remembered come March and April. We can only hope the Warriors continue to play with this chip on their collective shoulder for the remainder of the season.

The strong record is excellent, but more importantly, these Warriors have given fans of the team and the league something to rally around in the early portion of the season. They’ve fulfilled the mandate that’s plastered on the tunnel between the team’s locker room and the Chase Center court:

“Make ‘Em Look”

We’re looking, Dubs. And we’re liking what we’re seeing.