Steve Kerr called a meeting after the Phoenix loss dropped his team to 0-3, and whatever he said worked. The Warriors haven't lost since. They just put away Miami 120-100, their sixth straight win, and Stephen Curry told reporters, "This run that we are on is building a lot of confidence." He's right about that much. The Warriors are clearly playing better. The real question is whether anyone should believe it yet.
Thursday's game should temper the celebration some. It was tied 53-53 at halftime, and Curry was 2 of 10 to that point. The Warriors needed a big third quarter to save it, outscoring Miami 38-23 and never letting up, winning the second half 67-47 and pulling away to a 20-point lead. Curry caught fire late, finishing 9 of 19 with six threes for 29 points, and Yaxel Lendeborg was excellent around him with 17 points, eight rebounds and six assists. That's a real team playing well when it mattered. For a half, though, they weren't beating anybody.
Miami gave them exactly the kind of opponent a streak loves. The Heat were on the second night of a back-to-back after going to overtime against the Clippers, and it showed: they got outscored 26-9 in one stretch of the third quarter they never recovered from, and they're now 3-6 on a season already getting away from them. Giannis Antetokounmpo had 20 and 14, Davion Mitchell had 22 and eight assists, Bam Adebayo had 18 and 10, and none of it mattered because the team around them is running on fumes. This result says more about Miami's unraveling season than about Golden State's ceiling.
Rating
RatingThe schedule backs up the caution. Golden State's homestand closes out against Orlando and New Orleans next, not exactly a gauntlet. Beat writers are already framing this as the franchise's longest run without Jimmy Butler on the floor since a similar streak in the spring of 2024, and their best stretch since a longer run in March of last year. Something has genuinely clicked. Whether they can hang with the league's best is still unanswered, because they haven't had to yet.
The turnaround is real. Going from an 0-3 start that included losses to the Lakers, Grizzlies and Suns to six straight wins is a real response to a real problem, and Kerr deserves credit for whatever he said in that locker room. The streak has even survived its own chaos: Draymond Green was ejected during the win over Phoenix earlier in this run for throwing a much younger opponent to the ground, and the Warriors kept winning without him that night and the next. A team that can absorb a bad moment from its most combustible player and keep winning has real depth.
RTGCurry's right that the confidence is real. It just hasn't been tested yet. Confidence built against a tired Heat team and a softening schedule doesn't make a contender's résumé. The Warriors still have to survive contact with somebody good.
