Durant gave the reporter his best are-you-stoned quizzical look.

“I mean, he’s been attacking since he was at Artesia High School. Nothing’s changed except the jersey.”

The Warriors are a colossus frustrated. They have three great scorers — Durant, Thompson and Curry — and fine role players and defenders, but the pitch of their orchestra is off. Durant looks dominant — you have to remind yourself that you are watching a 7-footer dropping a fall-away jumper from behind the free-throw line or splitting the defenders like a point guard and hitting a scoop shot from 10 feet — but his running mates are out of sorts.

Thompson’s shots landed an inch or two long or short, and he picks up too many fouls trying to lasso Harden. Curry came out more aggressively on Monday, scooting to the hoop and putting up his usual elusive assortment of butterfly floaters and scoring 30 points with eight assists. By any nonheavenly measure he had a fine game. He also hit only 4 of 14 3-point attempts, an unusual failure for a player with a career 43 percent touch from long range.

“We’re rolling in and thinking, oh yeah, we’ll box,” said Draymond Green, the Warriors’ often charming rogue of a passer and rebounder. “And they’re slamming us.”

Yes, well. This was no effete affair. Both Harden and Green took blows during the game that sent them spinning as if knocked senseless to the court. (Note to the league commissioner, Adam Silver: Playoff basketball is one of the great treats in sports, all sweaty intensity and artistry, and it is scarred, game after game, by the incessant whining of players and coaches at referees. Basta, please.)

The Rockets came out in the second half determined to put the Warriors away and opened a lead that hovered at 15 points. The Warriors, however, are a rattlesnake of a team, which is to say that you can all but behead it and quickly it sinks its fangs in and you’re in pain all over again.