Mayor Jean Quan said the team's high attendance this season shows that "East Bay and Oakland fans have proven again that we have heart and really love our sports teams."
Tim Roye, the team's radio announcer, said the Warriors "have the best fans in the NBA."
He said the team averaged 19,300 fans for its home games this season and has had 32 consecutive sellouts.
The team's success this year, with 47 wins and 35 losses, has resulted in a 70 percent increase in its radio audience and a 40 percent increase in its TV audience, he said.
Roye said that because the Warriors are in the playoffs, "We get to go to the Oracle Arena a few more times" this year. Before 2007, the team last made the playoffs in 1994.
The Warriors, who finished their regular season with a win at Portland on Wednesday night, begin a best-of-seven series against the Denver Nuggets in Denver on Saturday. Games 3 and 4 will be held in Oakland on April 26 and 28. Roye said tickets will go on sale on Saturday.
Although the Warriors are underdogs against Denver, which beat them three out of their four games this season, TV analyst and former Warriors player Jim Barnett said, "You can't sell this team short because it has something special. Let's look for an upset."
Al Attles, who was coach of the 1975 Warriors team -- the only group in the team's history in Oakland to win a championship -- said, "We're going to surprise a lot of people" in the playoffs this year.
After the event at City Center Plaza, Quan raised two Warriors flags over City Hall.
