The Golden State Warriors could break the all-time regular season wins record as they work to defend their title.

Joe Lacob believes the Warriors' results are a product of their master plan.

“The great, great venture capitalists who built company after company, that’s not an accident,” he said. “And none of this is an accident, either.”

Lacob believes the Warriors are playing in a more sophisticated way than the rest of the NBA.

“We’ve crushed them on the basketball court, and we’re going to for years because of the way we’ve built this team,” he said. But what really set the franchise apart, he said, was the way it operated as a business. “We’re light-years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we’re going to go about things,” he said. “We’re going to be a handful for the rest of the NBA to deal with for a long time.”

Lacob bought the Warriors in 2010 and used his experience in the world of venture capital to create the structure of the franchise.

“In venture capital, I started 70 companies,” he told me. “I also watched my partners’ deals, maybe 200 of them. That’s a lot of companies. I thought about the way we design a board of directors, the way we design the financing. There’s an architecture to it. And I started thinking about the architecture I would use when I owned and built my own team someday.”

It certainly helps to have a player of the caliber of Stephen Curry, but Lacob sees the success of one of the league's most transcendent players as part of the entire infrastructure.

“It’s not just Steph Curry,” said Lacob. “It’s architecting a team, a style of play, the way they all play together. It’s all extremely thought through.”

Serge Ibaka had 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in Monday's win by the Oklahoma City Thunder over the Toronto Raptors. Most impressive was perhaps Ibaka's +39 in 33 minutes.

Ibaka made several key passes as well as shot fakes into mid-range jumpers.

“Those things I’ve been working all season,” Ibaka said. “I just think it’s paying off now.”

Ibaka used his gravitational pull to create offense for other players.

“Guys have to respect that 15-, 17-foot jumper,” Westbrook said. “Because that’s easy money for him. So he’s doing a better job reading and reacting.”

Said Billy Donovan: “He’s seeing things now for whatever reason that maybe he was missing in previous games.”

“I’m gonna tell you the truth, it’s hard sometimes when you play hard, you play you’re (butt off),” Ibaka swore, before apologizing and rephrasing. “You play so hard on defense, then you come to offense and you’re going to be out there in the corner for 4, 5, 6, sometimes 8 minutes and you don’t touch the ball. We human, man. It’s hard.”

The Portland Trail Blazers are one of the NBA's biggest success stories this season with their surprisingly competitive team despite losing LaMarcus Aldridge in the offseason.

Damian Lillard credits how closely the players have worked together even before the season started.

“It’s a great feeling and it’s rewarding,” Lillard said of the Blazers’ surprising season. “We put so much time in together. Once our roster came together, we started spending time together right away. We went to San Diego together and worked out for a week. We came to Portland a month and a half early, played pickup. We worked out together, hung out together, and formed a bond with each other.”

The Blazers have been on a surge since a 29-point victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Dec. 26th. The Blazers have won 26 of their last 42 games.

“When the season started, we knew there would be growing pains on the floor, and it would come down to how we responded to that,” said Lillard. “All the things we went through to start the season, it made us better, and now we’re in position to be a playoff team.”

Lillard is the unquestioned leader but it's a group effort.

“It’s not me just doing everything,” Lillard said. “I’m not carrying the team and having to do it all by myself. It’s the group. I came into camp and in my mind I’m saying we’re going to be better than people think, having a lot of pride. We’ve been able to do what we’ve done because everybody felt that way. Everybody came in and said, ‘I’m better than what they say I am. I can bring more to this team than they say I can bring.’ And they took it personal.”

Nerlens Noel would like to expand his offensive game to include mid-range jumpers.

"I know where I am at, and I know where I have to get to," Noel said. "I know I will get there, and I know I will have the drive to continue to work through the offseason, especially this one, being a major one [for development.]"

Noel is shooting 52.3 percent from the field, which ranked 12th in the NBA before Thursday's league matchups. However, he's shooting just 27 percent from 10 feet out to the three-point line.

"I think I've taken some good shots," Noel said. "They just haven't fallen. So it's just a matter of keep putting up those shots and staying with it."

Noel plans on spending a lot of the summer working on his jumper.

"I just really want to be with him 70 to 80 percent of the summer just working on my body, because he's really one of the best at it," Noel said of Todd Wright, Philadelphia's head of strength and conditioning. "I think I can have a crazy summer of just building everything on my body and being a lot more explosive with him."

The Boston Celtics have had success with players like Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder and Evan Turner, who have played were given up on by prior teams.

"We look at guys who might have a chip on their shoulder," Brad Stevens says. "That's been a big deal for us. It's something that can be contagious, but it has to be recruited. At this level you have to draft and sign guys who have that attitude. It's hard to create an environment if those guys didn't bring that with them."

The advantage they found is players who came to Boston pissed off. "It's our DNA," Crowder says.

"We got a group of guys that have always been counted out," Thomas adds. "And we play like that."

The Atlanta Hawks spent 90 percent of practice time to defense and they now rank second in the NBA in points allowed per possession.

The Hawks have been ranked first in the NBA during 2016 by a wide margin.

Opposing teams figured out how to slow down the Hawks' offense, but they hope it can be as good as it was during the 14-15 regular season again.

"Our offense hasn't been there, so our defense has had to be better," Kyle Korver said. "There has been growth in the team because of that realization. And now we're starting to figure some things out offensively. I think we peaked too early last year. Hopefully this year, our best basketball is ahead of us."

The Hawks rank second in the NBA in forcing turnovers.

"The turnover thing is weird for me," Mike Budenholzer says. "I didn't dream for 20 years about coaching a team that would create turnovers."

The Hawks swarm without gambling or fouling.

John Hammond was asked about what he expects to see from Giannis Antetokounmpo in three or four years as he continues to develop for the Milwaukee Bucks.

“I’ll tell you this: Giannis, at 21, needs two simple things to become an All Star, from this moment that we’re speaking: to score the open jump shots from 15-16 feet and three-pointers from the corners,” said Hammond.

Hammond was also asked what position suits Antetokounmpo best.

“He’s a forward. I said it when we selected Jabari Parker in the draft as well. Many are not aware that Parker is also really good with the ball in his hands and that he can set up and execute plays. It’s very important for us for these two to learn to play really well together. For Giannis, I’ll say the same things I said when they asked me who he is, in the summer of 2013, when we selected him. He’s a guy who knows how to play the game well and he has a good perception, he can see everything on the court. He was this kind of a player since he was young! With a special feel for the game and a good perception. We are very happy that, lately, Giannis has been using these gifts that he has in his games, with very good results for the team.”

Hammond acknowledges the Bucks were lucky in drafting Antetokounmpo.

“We were lucky! I honestly believe that. Many times I hear people saying that, in the case of Antetokounmpo, Hammond saw something that the others didn’t see. Not so. We’re all very good scouts, we all collect the right data and, from there, it’s just a matter of the numbers you pick and which players you can get. I didn’t see anything different from what everyone else saw in Giannis. We were just very lucky to have the number 15. Giannis hadn’t been selected by any other team until we got to 15, and so we got him!”

The Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs meet again on Saturday with the highest combined winning percentage of any meeting at least 65 games into the season.

The Warriors and Spurs have a combined winning percentage of .882 with their records of 62-6 and 58-10 respectively.

Both the Warriors and Spurs are also undefeated at home.

LaMarcus Aldridge became a more aggressive and efficient scorer for the San Antonio Spurs after Tim Duncan missed a stretch of time beginning in January. Since Duncan has returned, Aldridge has continued his high level of production.

From the start of the season until January 22nd, Aldridge averaged 15.9 points per game on 48.7 percent shooting and 13.6 field goal attempts. Between January 23rd and February 18th, Aldridge averaged 20.8 points on 54.7 percent shooting and 13.9 field goal attempts. From February 18th until March 17th, Aldridge has averaged 20.2 points on 52.6 percent shooting and 15.2 field goal attempts.

“It’s a subjective thing, but I think it’s logical to think that that may have been a little bit of a catalyst,” said Gregg Popovich. “He realized he had to do some things and there wasn’t anybody else to defer to, as far as bigs are concerned. That probably had a little bit to do with it. It’s also been a process where he’s become more comfortable in the offense, catching it in different places than he was used to, and it was a process for me too to give him the ball more in places that he was used to. So a little bit of both and then as time went on his confidence level went up when he would miss shots, and he realized we don’t care.”

“We care if you don’t shoot them if you’re open,” continued Popovich. “If you miss them, we don’t care, you can’t control that.”

C.J. McCollum is averaging 20.7 points and 4.1 assists per game this season as he's having a breakout year with increased minutes.

"For me as an individual, it’s been a good year," said McCollum. "Coming off an injury riddled season when I was hurt, not playing a lot of minutes. I wasn’t healthy. I was in and out of the rotation, playing around 15 minutes a game. And then we make the Arron Afflalo trade, and those 15 minutes go to zero. I got some DNPs, and then some injuries allowed me to get back into the rotation and I finish the season strong. … It was kind of like I played, then I didn’t play, played again, and then the season ended. So people didn’t know what to expect from me. Probably wasn’t sure how I would adapt to an increasing new role. Being on your podcast (last summer), I was really able to get a sense of the low expectations that people had for us around the NBA."

McCollum is a leading candidate for Most Improved Player and was asked if he thinks he deserves the award.

"There are a lot of good players that have improved. You look at my increased role and opportunity to increase my production; I think it stacks up pretty well against the rest of the guys. … I think based off what I’ve done and what our team has done – just the development and our coaching staff has spent tons of hours watching film and continuing to help us get better – we’re at a really good place. Individually, I’m continuing to get better and would love to accept the award on behalf of the city of Portland and Trail Blazers organization."