Looking Back
With the ability to have some time to look back on and digest the game, it’s an interesting one to think about in terms of what it means for both franchises and the players in it.
For the Bucks, it will undoubtedly go down as one of the more memorable games in the franchise’s history. It’s hard to think of any regular season game with as much historical significance as this one.
In all honesty, it’s probably one of the biggest wins in recent franchise history, post-season included. That’s more a shot at the Bucks’ sad track record of failure since really the 80s, but still.
For the Warriors, it was little more than a blip. Would they have wanted to win the game and break the Lakers’ streak? No doubt they were going for it, but the fact that they got the regular season wins record probably helped them get over the loss.
I would have said that none of the Warriors players likely care or think back on that game, but then Curry brought it up on his own when talking about his legacy to Simmons, so the game certainly has left a mark on him.
On its own, the game would have been a memorable one for Bucks and NBA fans, but the 24-1 shirts really seemed to make it special and different. The brashness, the undeserved confidence to print and wear the shirts before the game is, to this day, hard to fathom.
The game certainly left its mark on modern-day NBA lexicon, as it seems that every time the Bucks and Warriors match up someone will mention 24-1 at some point.
It’s also pretty amusing to look back on the game now, and marvel at how much the game has changed. It’s only been three years, but can you imagine any NBA team right now beating the Warriors behind big games from Greg Monroe and Michael Carter-Williams?
The Bucks as a team hit only six three-pointers, and four of those came from Mayo. That’s not happening in 2018.
It was like the last gasp from an NBA that doesn’t exist anymore, as a non-shooting point guard and slow-footed, post-heavy big man were the ones to finally take down the best outside shooting team in NBA history (that is until they added Kevin Durant the next season).
In the end, the game really didn’t matter much or change the trajectory of either franchise. It’s little more than a footnote in the record books, but every time the Bucks and Warriors face off for the foreseeable future, this game will still come to mind.
The Warriors were an unstoppable storm of shooting that devoured everything in their path for months. The Bucks were a bad team built with archaic ideas of how to play NBA basketball. But for one night, they were the 1 in 24-1.