BOSTON — In the far right corner of a TD Garden that was rocking from pregame introductions until the final buzzer, Steph Curry shimmied his shoulders and rocked on his tiptoes.
Curry had just dished to Buddy Hield for a game-sealing 3-pointer, a capstone on the Warriors’ first signature win of the season — a 118-112 win in the defending champion Boston Celtics’ place.
Hield, a nine-year veteran but new to the Warriors-Celtics rivalry, knew just how big the game was.
“What do you think?” Hield said postgame. “It’s a statement. If we don’t win, everybody says, ‘Oh, they ain’t played nobody.’ You’ve got to come make a statement, right? And on the road. That’s how the basketball world talks. They’d say you haven’t played nobody yet. (But now) we’re battle-tested and this team’s real.”
The victory was proof that the Warriors are capable of more than just beating up on lesser competition. That the defensive identity they’ve been harping on is real. That their depth makes games easier for them. That their championship DNA still permeates. That Curry — who finished with 27 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and four steals — is still undeniably one of the greatest players in the game at 36.
The Warriors’ fifth straight win brings them to 7-1. Curry wants more.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” Curry said at his locker in Boston. “A good team, a relevant team, wins the games they’re supposed to win. You steal a couple on the road against good teams. You protect your home court. We’ve done those things so far. But we’ve got two more games on this road trip, two more tough tests.
“And again, it’s still the way we play, every night is different. So you never get too comfortable because you have to stay on your toes. You don’t know who’s playing, you don’t know whose night it’s going to be. You just know everybody’s going to be asked to do something this season to contribute. I like where we’re at, obviously, but (there’s) a long way to go.”
The word “relevant” is, well, relevant. Before the season, Curry said he thinks the Warriors are “in a position to be a relevant team early and give ourselves to compete, then assess where we are.”
The Warriors’ strong start doesn’t necessarily meet that criteria quite yet for Curry. But there’s still a lot to like about how they’re playing.
On Wednesday, the Warriors held Boston — the best offensive team in the league — to 40 first-half points. They stabilized after the Celtics made their inevitable run in the third quarter and sealed the game with more defensive stops and clutch plays from Kevon Looney, Hield and Curry.
Even without De’Anthony Melton (back) and Brandin Podziemski (illness), Steve Kerr played 11 guys at least 13 minutes. Without the deep rotation, they might not be able to play the type of locked-in defense and up-tempo style they’ve embraced.
“We got a lot of fresh legs,” Gary Payton II said. “ It’s kind of like a line change. You’ve got another five coming in fresh and ready to go. Stay with the aggressiveness on defense. And when that one’s out, we get another line change and more fresh legs back in there.”
Golden State won all three games Curry missed with a sprained ankle after going 3-5 without him last season. They beat the Rockets in Houston, admitting afterward that last year they almost surely wouldn’t have been able to hold on. They blew out Portland and Utah to open the season by an NBA-record 77-point cumulative margin.
They’ve emphasized accountability — Kerr with unnecessary turnovers that thin Golden State’s margin for error and assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse with defensive principles.
“I think we’re sharper across the board,” Looney said.
So far, it has all added up to winning basketball for the Warriors. The Celtics were the measuring stick after a soft stretch of schedule. They measured up.
Last time Golden State was at TD Garden, the Warriors got blown out by 52 points — another sign of how different this group is from last season’s.
“Obviously we know what happened last year,” Curry said. “So it was a great test, knowing we haven’t done a damn thing. But it felt good.”
But there are plenty more tests to come. Cleveland and Oklahoma City, the next two stops on this five-city road trip, are two of the best teams in the league. Dallas and Memphis, two Western Conference contenders, await the Warriors when they return home.
Maybe after that stretch, Curry will know for sure if his squad is relevant.
