Why Bulls assistant says 1996 team could have won more than 72 games

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They’ll be compared for the rest of time. Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls set an NBA record with 72 wins in the 1995-96 regular season, a record that stood until the Warriors won 73 games in the 2015-16 campaign.

But if MJ and the Bulls had known there would be a team that would eventually top the mark, they would have won a few more games, at least according to former Chicago assistant Jim Cleamons.

In order to win 76 games, the 1995-96 Bulls would've had to lose no more than six regular-season games. Considering the team lost its sixth game on Feb. 23, 1996, Chicago would have needed to win its final 28 games of the season in order to reach that mark.

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The 2015-16 Warriors actually lost their sixth game on Mar. 6, and would've needed to win 21 in a row to win 76. 

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While there likely were some winnable games for both teams earlier in the year, the amount of travel and wear and tear of the 82-game NBA season make having such an astronomical winning percentage nearly impossible.

We could just sit back and enjoy discussing the two greatest NBA teams of all time, but naturally, the debate always will rage on as to which one would end up winning a hypothetical on-court matchup.

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