The Golden State Warriors are off the charts — literally. In the 2015 to 2016 season, the reigning NBA champions became the first team to win 24 straight games to begin the season, the first team to never lose two games in a row and the first team to never lose to the same team twice. They set new records with their 54-straight home wins and 34 total away victories. 

Their star point guard, Stephen Curry, shattered the league record for 3-point field goals — a record he set last year when he scored 286 field goals, — with the 402 he successfully scored this season; in fact, this is the third time that Curry has broken the 3-point field goal record. His teammate, shooting guard Klay Thompson, had the second-most 3-point field goals in the league, with 276 on the season, just ten short of Curry’s old record.

However, what really set the Warriors above the rest of the pack was their regular season record of 73-9. While losing only nine games over the course of over six months with only short breaks between each game is impressive enough, it is the first number that stands out. That 73 is the most wins by a franchise in a single season, and it broke the long-time record for the best overall season record. 

The 1995 to 1996 Chicago Bulls, considered to be one of, if not the best —  team in basketball history — had a 72-10 record on the season and went on to win the NBA championship that year. That team included basketball legend Michael Jordan, stars Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen and, interestingly enough, current Warriors coach Steve Kerr. Kerr himself told Sports Illustrated in an April 14 article that he always saw 73 victories like breaking Joe DiMaggio’s hitting record in baseball: impossible to break.

Despite what Kerr had to say, the Warriors won their 73rd regular season game on April 13, before a packed Oracle Arena in Oakland. Their opponents, the Memphis Grizzlies, are not a bad team. They had a respectable 42-40 regular-season run to land smack in the middle of the conference and play a physical form of basketball. However, the Warriors thoroughly romped the Grizzlies. 

At no point did the Warriors lose their lead, and for most of the first quarter, Curry alone had scored more points than the entire Grizzlies team combined. By the end of the first quarter, it was clear that the Warriors were going to blow the Grizzlies out of the water. The only questions were what the final margin of victory would be and if Curry would hit 400 3-point field goals in the game.

The Warriors trounced the Grizzlies 125-104, answering the first question resoundingly. To the latter, Curry did reach 400 and then some. Going into the game, Curry had 392 3-pointers on the season, over one hundred more than his season-shattering 286 from last year. He hit 10 in the game, six of them in the first quarter alone. The 400th came less than a minute into the third quarter, when Curry hit an easy shot from the line, and the next two quickly followed. Despite sitting out all of the fourth quarter, Curry still managed to score 46 points, more than a third of all Warriors’ points for the historic evening. 

In the first round of the playoffs, the Warriors are facing off against the Houston Rockets. So far, they have won their first game with a resounding 104-78 victory, and the team is expected to easily finish off Houston in this round. 

Overall, statistics website FiveThirtyEight gives the Warriors a 44 percent chance to win the NBA title; the second-most likely team, in the San Antonio Spurs, has only a 1-in-four chance, while the most likely Eastern Conference team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, have a less than one-in-ten shot. Warriors fans should not be too worried; as long as Curry, Thompson and defensive powerhouse power forward Draymond Green stay healthy and play half as well as they did in the regular season, the Warriors have a good chance to win it all.