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Golden State Warriors: 10 Steps To Winning A Championship

By Gerald Bourguet

Jun 16, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11), guard Stephen Curry (30) and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) celebrates with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after beating the Cleveland Cavaliers in game six of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 16, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11), guard Stephen Curry (30) and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) celebrates with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after beating the Cleveland Cavaliers in game six of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /
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Golden State Warriors
Jun 16, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) and forward Draymond Green (23) react in the closing of game six of the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

4. Sustaining Leads

When you’re talking about a 67-win team, obviously you’re talking about a group that does a lot of things right.

The Warriors were the league’s top-ranked defense and its second-best offense. They had the league MVP and didn’t lose three consecutive games all season long. They were an elite three-point shooting team and led the NBA in so many statistical categories it’s hard to pinpoint one main ingredient to their success.

But one mark of a great team is their ability to beat lesser teams and close out games after building leads. During the 2014-15 campaign, nobody was better at doing that than the Golden State Warriors.

For starters, you could point to the Dubs’ league-leading +10.1 point differential in the regular season. You could point to their playoff-leading +7.8 point differential as well. But the one season-defining stat when it comes to how the Golden State Warriors dominated their opponents deals with how they were able to build double-digit leads and keep them to win so many games.

Of the 103 games the Warriors won this season, they built a lead of at least 15 points in 59 of those games (57.3 percent of their games). In those 59 games, they were a perfect 59-0. Not only were the Warriors regularly pouncing on their opponents and building sizable 15-point leads in nearly 60 percent of their games, but when they did so, they won 100 percent of the time.

That is almost literally the embodiment of, “60 percent of the time, it works every time.”

In the postseason, the Warriors didn’t get off to many hot starts, especially at home. But when they led or were tied with their opponent at the half, they went a perfect 14-0. In games where they trailed at the break during the playoffs, they were only 2-5.

Despite having so many young players, and despite not having a single player on the roster with NBA Finals experience, the Dubs were ultimately able to conquer the basketball world because of their poise, their ability to execute and their penchant for sustaining and defending leads.

Next: No. 3

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