In the previous post I fretted over the possibility that the Golden State Warriors could break the Los Angeles Lakers’ record NBA winning streak of 33 games.

Within hours of that post going up … the Warriors lost, for the first time this season.

And I will take some credit for that.

Sports fans often believe their actions influence outcomes. By wearing the same socks during a winning streak. By talking up teams you want to lose. By denigrating teams you want to win.

Why do fans believe this? Because they are primitive and superstitious. (Guilty as charged.) But, too, when extremes of performance are at work, the reversion-to-the-mean concept comes into play, too.

(I really think this is a major factor in the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx. SI puts a person on the cover when everything is going great, when the athlete is at the pinnacle — and there is only one direction to go from there.)

So, the Warriors lost 108-95 at Milwaukee, and at least one headline at ESPN had the words “weary Warriors” in it, referring to the double-overtime game they had played in Boston the night before … which is no excuse at all, in the context of the Lakers’ record.

Because some of the information I bumped into yesterday while researching the Lakers-Warriors piece included these bits:

–The Lakers played seven back-to-back sets of games during their 33-game streak in 1971-72. Four times they played back-to-back-to-back — three games in three days. And they rolled right on through those.

–The Lakers, during the streak, three times encountered what brought down the Warriors — the road back-to-back. Chicago and Philadelphia; Houston and Golden State; Buffalo and Baltimore. They won the second games by 40, 13 and seven points. Not a problem.

–The Warriors successfully negotiated five back-to-backs. They had zero back-to-back-to-backs. They probably don’t really know what “weary” means, in the context of the NBA of 44 years ago.

–The Lakers’ streak, as I alluded to yesterday, was driven by five men, their starters — Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich (their leading scorer that season), Happy Hairston and Jim McMillian. With marginal contributions off the bench.

–The Warriors have been getting meaningful contributions from about 12 players. Stephen Curry is a great player, but that word does not fit well yet on any of their other guys, though rebounder/stopper Draymond Green seems on his way, as his scoring rises. The flip side to these Warriors is quality depth the Lakers did not have. But maybe a team is better off with five really, really good guys — which was the 1971-72 Lakers.

I now will point out two other instances where I felt compelled to intervene to “protect” the records of Los Angeles sportsmen.

–When the Miami Heat reached 24 straight, in 2012-13, I bleated about my worry of them reaching/surpassing 33. That was already the second-longest streak in NBA history. Anyway, I didn’t bring down LeBron & Co. within 12 hours, as I did the Warriors, but their streak stopped at 27 with a loss at Chicago.

–When Adrian Peterson was threatening Eric Dickerson’s NFL record for single-season yards rushing, I got up in the middle of the night to bend the universe with my mind and keep Peterson from breaking the record — by a scant nine yards. And, thus, perhaps the last great performance by the Los Angeles Rams was preserved.

Now, Steph Curry and the Warriors.

It doesn’t always work. I wanted Michael Jordan and the Bulls to never break the Lakers’ best-season record, of 69-13, but MJ and Co. went 72-10 in 1995-96, and that was that.

But the Heat, Adrian Peterson, the Warriors … just saying.