OAKLAND, Calif. — A building can’t save them, their championship trophy-filled recent past can’t save them, and the Golden State Warriors can’t even count on Kevin Durant to save them.

The two-time defending champions ran into a buzzsaw Friday night in what could be the last game played at Oracle Arena, getting blitzed in the third quarter to put them one game away from elimination.

One game away from one of the greatest dynasties hitting an unexpected end in the most unexpected fashion as the Toronto Raptors look stronger and more confident with every game as this series progresses — a series that could end Monday night across the border.

Is this what the death of a dynasty looks like?

You look up and all of a sudden, all a team has to live on to keep themselves from throwing in the towel is “we’ve done it before,” a mantra everyone from the top down said after a 105-92 Game 4 loss that gave the Raptors a 3-1 NBA Finals series lead.

Klay Thompson, center, and the Warriors had no answer for the Raptors on Friday night. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) More

When Kobe Bryant’s Lakers went down in flames in 2011, it was to a Dallas Mavericks team — the eventual champion — that had more years of failure than triumph, something that was leaned upon well into the series-clinching whipping in Game 4 in Dallas.

LeBron James’ Miami Heat team looked poised for a third straight title when a determined group in San Antonio, featuring Kawhi Leonard, made quick work of them in 2014, when we all believed they were clicking on all cylinders.

The Bad Boy Pistons and Showtime Lakers all faced similar fates: the right team at the right time deciding to show no mercy.

“In our locker room we're talking about believing, everybody out there believe that we can get this done,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “We got to. We can draw on those experiences that we had back in the day and see what happens.”

They’ve done it against James and his band of role players. They’ve squeezed James Harden’s teams into self-destruction and indecision.

They haven’t done it against this type of team, led by an indestructible Leonard and a group of interchangeable parts looking for the most minute weakness.

When dynasties fall, it usually happens with no fair warning — even if the signs are blaring. With the snap of a finger, the moment has passed and history is made.

Is it the years of playoff series seemingly catching up to them at once, going from “light years ahead” to Leonard possibly sending Oracle to the dark forever? The Warriors have always seemed to escape from the clutches, with a Steph Curry explosion or a stone-faced Klay Thompson performance to rescue a drowning team.

Sometimes they’ve won in spite of themselves, dancing with danger as the margin for error got slimmer and slimmer even after Durant made them unbeatable. There was always a challenger lurking, but the one franchise they likely didn’t expect is doing what the Houston Rockets or any other wannabe couldn’t in driving the Warriors to the brink.

“We’re gonna make them play defense, and they don’t like doing that,” a Raptors staffer said before the series. “They play in spurts but not all the time.”

It was the Raptors who brought suffocating defense, hanging tough through the emotional runs the Warriors used to bury opponents. And it was the Raptors who made the champions look frazzled at the first sign of trouble, when Leonard’s consecutive triples to start the second half Friday night gave his team a lead and burgeoning confidence it wouldn’t relinquish, extinguishing a spirited 24 minutes from Golden State.

The Warriors were on their heels the rest of the night, playing with a champion’s spirit. But it takes more than that when the options are thin due to injury, inexperience or just poor roster fits. They needed Durant in the worst way, because he changes everything in a one-on-one matchup with Leonard.

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