BOSTON – At Golden State’s media day in September, superstar guard Stephen Curry gave a mild statement of intent for this season when he said his Warriors are “in a position where we can be a relevant team early and give ourselves a chance to compete.

‘Then assess where we stand.’

On Wednesday night, just weeks after Curry made those comments, he and the Warriors improved to 7-1 on the season and moved into a tie with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns for the best record in the Western Conference thanks to a thrilling 118 -112 win over the Boston Celtics at TD Garden.

But despite a win over the defending champions — a win that saw the Warriors finish the night with the league’s third-best offense, second-best defense and best net rating (plus 15.5 points per 100 possessions) — Curry is out ready to give Golden State too much credit yet.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Curry, who finished with 27 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists and 4 steals in 34 minutes, said with a wry smile as he stood in the visitors’ locker room about an hour after the game ended. fed up. . “A good team, or a relevant team, wins the games they need to win, you steal a few from good teams along the way, you protect your home court. We’ve done those things so far, but we still have two more games on this road trip, two tough tests.

“So of course I like where we are now. But there is still a long way to go.”

The Warriors have only played 10 percent of their season so far, but the early returns are extremely encouraging. Golden State, which won its first title under Steve Kerr in the 2014/2015 season under the motto ‘Strength In Numbers’, has taken this approach to a new level this season by playing as many as thirteen players on any given night. On Wednesday, with Brandin Podziemski absent due to an illness, Golden State played 11 players – and all of them got at least 13 minutes of game action.

As a result, the Warriors had a constant rotation of new defensemen to throw at the Celtics, allowing them to wreak havoc on Boston’s offense throughout the game. While the Celtics hit their usual three-pointers and went 19-for-54 from behind the arc, they committed 12 turnovers and generally looked out of sync offensively for large portions of the game in a way they normally are. not just this season, but the past few years as well — and especially short of a 41-point explosion in the third quarter.

“They’re physical, so they force you to fight for your space,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “They have active hands, so I think they got a lot of deflections in the first half. They were able to get some stuff there, but I thought we handled the physicality better in the second half and we just had to again, we’re talking about physicality, it’s as much about defense as it is about offense. So it took us a while to get used to that, we performed really well end.”

In particular, it was a series of possessions that came after Gary Payton II dove to the floor and got a loose ball with 4:18 left in the fourth quarter, giving Golden State the ball while Boston held a 97-96 lead after Kerr. called a quick timeout. Over the next four minutes, Golden State outscored Boston 15-7, scoring on several consecutive possessions, sending the game out of hand — in part due to a pair of huge offensive rebounds from Warriors center Kevon Looney, including one on a badly missed airball -corner. 3 by Draymond Green.

It was reminiscent of Looney’s dominant performance on the offensive board in the 2022 NBA Finals, when Golden State shut down Boston in six games to win the title, and underscored how the Warriors won this game through their physicality and strength on both ends of the match. court.

“The last five minutes I thought our defense really showed up,” Kerr said. “The activity, Gary being on the ground, Loon getting two putbacks, those were maybe the two biggest shots of the game. And then Steph found Buddy (Hield) in the corner for those three, I mean it was all in order. It felt like we connected the game, got stops and were able to score and close out the game.”

And as a result, a night that began with Kerr being booed after the so-called controversy surrounding his decision not to play Tatum in both games against Serbia for Team USA during the U.S. bid to win a fifth straight Olympic gold medal this summer. ended with the Warriors walking off the famous parquet floor victoriously.

That the Warriors did this at the start of a defining five-game stretch early in the season that started here Wednesday before heading to Cleveland and taking on the undefeated Cavaliers on Friday, in Oklahoma City on Sunday and then heading back to San Francisco in Klay Thompson’s return to the Dallas Mavericks before facing Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies only lends credence to their early season play more than a flash in the pan.

But while it remains to be seen how long they can continue playing exactly this way — especially with so many players playing — Curry likes what he sees and how the Warriors are doing.

“Until proven otherwise, that’s how we have to play,” Curry said. “And we talked about it. The coach talked about it until he was blue in the face. Every practice, every film session, every pre-game it’s the same message. So it’s who we are now, it’s who we have to You know, of course, as the season goes on, the rotations get smaller… It happened tonight. The rotations got a little tight in the second half just because you’re trying to win and put the pieces together It’s a fun way to play because again, every night is different and everyone has to stay involved, and it works.”