For months, as a dull, injury-riddled regular season trudged along with zero to truly motivate the defending champs, as it became clearer with every late-season sprain and loss that they were destined for the second seed, not first, the team’s key figures began salivating and targeting, not fearing, what’s to come on Monday night: Game 1 of the Western Conference finals in Houston, not Oakland.



Steve Kerr mentions it all the time: To fire up the competitive engines of his top guys, you often need to dangle a new challenge in front of them. This core has climbed NBA’s Everest. The second and third ascent is less exhilarating.



It’s tough to get charged up for a mid-February game against, let’s say, the Suns. So that’s why Kerr let his players randomly coach themselves: “Oh, this is new and fun and challenging.” Bam. Their crispest performance in weeks.



There isn’t much these Warriors haven’t conquered...