Sam Amick

USA TODAY Sports

Golden State Warriors have won 11 of past 13 games despite Wednesday%27s loss to Denver Nuggets

Andre Iguodala%27s hamstring injury set back Warriors%27 hopes%2C but his return has team back on track

Western Conference is so deep that injuries could be main factor in which team reaches NBA Finals

In this 2013-14 NBA season in which the widely held narratives about so many teams have held up about as well as Dennis Rodman's approval rating in his native country, the Golden State Warriors are the poster child in the Western Conference.

They win eight of 11 games to start the regular season, with third-year coach Mark Jackson and company earning a top-five defensive ranking (thanks to gritty specialists like Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut) and the Warriors being almost instantly deemed contenders by all. Watch out, San Antonio Spurs, here they come.

Or not. Iguodala goes down two games later (with a hamstring sprain), missing 12 games during a stretch in which they lose 10 out of 16 games (5-7 without him), and suddenly we decide – as was the case for so much of the 2012-13 regular season – that the Warriors are a fun-yet-ultimately-fruitless endeavor.

But wait! Even with a bad loss Wednesday to the Denver Nuggets, the Warriors have won 11 of their past 13 games and suddenly look like an elite team again. Which takes us to Friday.

The Warriors-Oklahoma City Thunder faceoff is not about them as much as it is what they represent. These are two teams at opposite ends of the narrative-flipping spectrum, with Golden State living the good life at the moment and the Russell Westbrook-less Thunder having lost five of their past eight games entering Thursday after a 25-5 start that had them looking like the Spurs-killers in the bunch.

Yet the truth about what it all means and which teams may or may not be for real isn't tough to uncover: Get healthy at the right time, and you'll have a shot. With the Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers as the only title contenders to not face major obstacles on the medical front, that much is true about the Warriors, Thunder, Memphis Grizzlies (see Marc Gasol, who recently returned from an MCL sprain that forced him out of 23 games and is now part of a four-game winning streak) and maybe even Los Angeles Clippers (who are without Chris Paul until February because of shoulder injury) and Houston Rockets (for whom point guards Jeremy Lin, Patrick Beverly have missed significant time).

Catch a bad break at the wrong time, and the script flips yet again and tumbles into the nearby trash can.

But the Warriors have officially joined this elite club because of their much-improved value system, this emphasis on defense and taking pride in stopping one's opponent began with Jackson's preaching but also was made possible because the Bob Myers-led front office has had a series of wonderful personnel strokes. Consider this: the finally-healthy Bogut, who came to Golden State via trade from the Milwaukee Bucks in March 2012, already has played in seven more games this season than last (39 to 32). Iguodala, who signed as a free agent during the summer, is such a perfect defensive fit that the Warriors give up, on average, 7.7 fewer points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor. Meanwhile, the Warriors' defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) has gone from 13th to fourth in the league (behind Oklahoma City, the Chicago Bulls, and Indiana Pacers) while their opponents' field-goal percentage (43.9) is also fourth.

As the Washington Wizards' 43-point first quarter against the struggling Miami Heat on Wednesday night showed, aberrations happen to the best defensive teams. But the more important part, the part that can't be quantified in the numbers, is that the Warriors now care about their performance on that end. You could hear it in their voices on Wednesday night, when the experience of giving up 123 points and 54.2% shooting that was once so commonplace in these parts left them sick to their collective stomach.

"Guys get vocal, and we take it personally when teams are clicking offensively against us and we're not playing the way we're supposed to," Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said after the loss to the Nuggets. "We understand that that's the way we're going to take the next step and get to where we want to go as a team, because it's proven. It has shown results. When you buy into getting stops, sacrificing for the next man, and leaving it all on the line on the defensive end, (it works). And (the loss to the Nuggets) is another reinforcement of that message."

Added forward David Lee, "If we play with that kind of effort going into Oklahoma City, it's going to be a long night."