BOSTON -- It couldn't have worked out any nicer for Golden State Coach Don Nelson, or any worse for the Boston Celtics' front office.
In the Boston Garden where his former No. 19 is retired and hanging in the rafters, Nelson's Warriors posted a 120-115 victory and gained him his 600th career coaching win against the Celtics Sunday night.
'It was a very special night for me,' said Nelson. 'After all the years I played here and all the great championship teams I played on, it couldn't have been any more apropos for me to get it here.'
One of the major keys to the win was Warriors' rookie guard Tim Hardaway, of Texas-El Paso, who was taken 14th in this past summer's NBA draft, one spot behind the Celtics' pick.
Hardaway, a point guard, scored 25 points and dished out a team-high 10 assists to key only Golden State's third road win against 16 losses.
During the offseason, Boston lost point guard Brian Shaw, who signed to play in Italy, and the team has been criticized for its choice of seldomly used forward Michael Smith of Brigham Young.
'Once again it was a case of a smaller lineup giving us problems defensively,' said Boston guard Reggie Lewis. 'We didn't get back in the transition game and they scored a lot of points off our missed shots.'
Nelson, in his second season as head coach of the Warriors after 11 in Milwaukee, became the 10th coach in the NBA to reach the 600-win mark, and the second quickest behind his former mentor Red Auerbach.
It took Nelson 1,004 games; while Auerbach reached the plateau in 953.
The Warriors were looking forward to gaining their coach his 600th win in the building where he played on six of Boston's 16 championship teams.
'We wanted to play hard tonight and we wanted to win it here,' said Golden State center Manute Bol, who blocked seven shots while logging 41 minutes of action.
The win snapped a Warriors' four-game losing skid, halted a seven-game road losing skein and was their first in Boston since Jan. 29, 1978, snapping an 11-game drought.
Chris Mullin led the way with 30 points, while Mitch Richmond and Terry Teagle finished with 26 points apiece.
'We wanted to take advantage of our quickness,' said Hardaway, who connected on 11 of 14 field goal attempts. 'We knew before we came in here that we were quicker.'
Larry Bird paced the Celtics with a game-high 37 points, Robert Parish scored 29 and Kevin McHale came off the bench and added 22.
The Warriors appeared to put the game away when Mullin's three-point play made it 114-99 with 4:23 left, but the Celtics came charging back to close the margin to 116-115 on McHale's basket with 34 seconds to play.
Teagle followed McHale's basket with a jumper to make it 118-115 with 12 seconds left.
The Celtics turned the ball over on their next possession and Richmond nailed two free throws with seven seconds left to seal the win.
'They gave us the outside shot, we just couldn't hit it tonight,' said Boston Coach Jimmy Rodgers, whose club connected on only 47 percent of its shots.
After Boston closed the margin to 100-95 on Bird's 16-foot turnaroundjumper with 7:38 to play, the Warriors seemingly took charge with an 11-2 run over the next three minutes.
Teagle triggered the run with a runner in the lane. Mullin stole the ball from Bird and moved in for a breakaway layup to make it 104-95.
After McHale scored inside for Boston, Richmond nailed a pair of free throws, Hardaway sank an 18-footer and Maunte Bol capped the spree with a 3-pointer as the 24-second clock expired, making it 111-97 with 4:39 left.
Golden State held a 90-85 edge after three.
The Warriors, behind 65-59 at the half, used a 13-4 run at the start of the third quarter, grabbing their first lead since early in the second period. Mullin scored 7 points in the spree and Teagle had 4.
'What 600 means is that I've had a wonderful career with a lot of wins,' said Nelson.
