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When Stephen Curry gets going as only he can, he becomes ruthlessly, and gloriously, selfish. He demands the ball and your attention, equally and totally, and he does with both what he damn well pleases. Such was the case Monday, when he once again did his thing to the tune of an NBA record 13 3-pointers against those poor, poor Pelicans.

Logic-defying shots from physics-defying angles, hair-trigger bombs off the dribble, fumbled passes and broken plays turned in-rhythm 28-footers like the whole thing was planned -- all at a 13-for-17 clip. It was impossible. To echo Donyell Marshall, it was inevitable.

It's also over.

Now, in the quieter, more measured aftermath of such a dazzling performance, we're back, or at least I'm back, to thinking about the Warriors long term. Or, more specifically, questioning the Warriors long term. I can't help it. They haven't looked great. Yeah, they're beating the teams they should beat in their sleep, as they did to a depleted and really bad Dallas team Wednesday night, but they haven't looked good, at least relatively speaking, overall, and it's in my blood to be reactionary, to jump to conclusions, to be a prisoner of the moment. I must get it from my dad. After Curry dropped 23 third-quarter points on the Blazers last week, he sent me a text.

"Curry is the best player! Not Durant! He has to play like it!"

Then, after Durant hung 39 on his former Thunder team a few days later, I got this:

"We have a new MVP!"

Then, the very next night, after the Warriors got embarrassed by the Lakers ...

"I'm officially worried!"

If you haven't figured it out, Pops is a Warriors fan. Bandwagon to the core, but, at this moment in time, and really for about the last three years, a true Warriors fan nonetheless. Doesn't miss a game. I don't, either -- but you know, that's my job. I admit to no allegiance in recognition of the time-honored journalistic code of neutrality.

Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I probably wake neighbors when Curry starts heating up.

I certainly woke them with some profanity when Kyrie Irving hit that dagger in last year's Finals.

Whatever. Sue me.

The point remains that fan or otherwise, everyone is prone to overreaction when it comes to this team. After Durant put up that aforementioned 39 against OKC, Fox Sports' Chris Broussard tweeted that Durant, not Curry, is the Warriors' best player.

Now, that's a fine statement. Broussard is certainly entitled to this very reasonable opinion, and Durant has indeed been really, really good in the early going, averaging 29 points and 7.6 boards at better than 58-percent shooting after Wednesday's game against Dallas -- in which the Warriors nearly set a franchise record with 14 threes in the first half. Durant himself was a perfect 7 for 7 in the first half, 4 of 4 from three. He finished with 28 points and 10 boards. He's unbelievable. Nobody could argue with you if you said he was the Warriors' best player.

Problem is, Broussard said on ESPN radio last year, almost 60 games into the season, that Curry wasn't just better than Durant, he was the best player in the NBA, LeBron be damned. What's changed since then, other than Curry eliminating Durant in the playoffs by way of the same 3-1 turnaround that LeBron subsequently laid on him?

If you didn't think Durant was better than Curry last year, it's hard to understand how you can think he's better now. He's always been a great scorer. He's always been efficient. He's always been nearly seven feet tall with point guard skills. Nothing, after all, has changed.

In the same breath, everything has changed.

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Stephen Curry doing Stephen Curry things is suddenly a necessity. USATSI

Somewhere along the way, as we all anticipated the infamous super-team "adjustment period," it occurred to me that perhaps the biggest adjustment that needs to be made is not in how the Warriors play, but in how we watch them play. It feels weird to adopt such traditional critiques for a team we've come to celebrate for flying by the seat of its collective pants.

Rebound! Make the smart pass! Play defense!

And yet, those are the things, the attention to detail, that made them great. That's what took them from a budding NBA problem under Mark Jackson to historically great a year later, and the greatest regular-season team in history two years later. I still can't believe they didn't win the title last year. LeBron was crazy good, I know. But still. They were just so great. Every time I watch the replay of Game 7 (which I sadly do fairly often), I still expect someone to hit some ridiculous horse shot to negate all the sins, all the silly turnovers, Curry's obvious injury ... cough, cough.

But I know that's not a dependable formula, even for the Warriors, to think you're just going to make enough shots to win, and that's what's happening this year. That's what brings me back to Curry's record-breaking night. It was everything that is terrifying about the Warriors. It was also everything that is troubling about them.

Yeah, Steph Curry went nuts, and can seemingly do that on a whim.

He also needed to go nuts to barely get past the winless, almost hopeless Pelicans.

Case in point of the two-sided Warriors coin comes in this highlight of Curry's first 3-pointer against New Orleans (keep an eye on Pelicans rookie Buddy Hield, who commits a basketball crime of the highest order in turning his back on the greatest shooter in NBA history):

Taking your eye off Curry is inexcusable, even for a rookie, but this is the sensory overload teams face with all this Warriors talent buzzing around them. You can see that as Hield is sprinting back (hey, at least he's hustling), he's pointing to Curry. He's aware of him. But don't point, swivel your head and cover the guy!

Problem is, Hield spots Klay Thompson running uncovered to the corner. Why is Klay running uncovered to the corner? Because Solomon Hill, the deepest defender, is overly, if understandably, focused on the guy leading the break, Kevin Durant. Have fun making that decision as a defender. Do I gravitate to the greatest 3-point shooter ever, perhaps the second-greatest 3-point shooter ever, or one of the five best scorers ever?

Indeed, this is the Warriors at their most glitch-in-the-system terrifying -- with Durant, the biggest threat to get all the way to the rim, initiating early offense. With the kind of spacing Curry and Klay provide, this is virtually indefensible. Durant can either attack the rim (he leads the league in paint shooting percentage) if they vacate the middle to connect to shooters, or drive and kick if they suck in. With this kind of talent, it really is that simple.

Golden State currently ranks fifth in early offense with a 58.5-percent effective FG mark, and that's with Klay Thompson shooting like Kenan Thompson. He finally got going Wednesday night vs. the Mavs, going 8 for 9 from the field in the first half including 4 of 5 from three. They're going to be devastating in early offense, transition in general, all year long, but the issue is that they're not getting in the open floor enough, ranking just 12th in early offense frequency.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why this is happening, or not happening. They're not a top-10 defensive team, and they're currently atrocious on the glass. In fact, coming into the Dallas game, the Warriors were giving up more offensive rebounds than any other team in the league. Even if you want to attribute that raw number (13) to pace, they were second-worst in defensive rebounding percentage, better than only the Knicks.

You can't get out and run if you're not stopping anyone, or if you're not finishing the possession when you do. That's one of the oldest, and truest rules in the book. And so, where I used to get excited about a Curry flurry, where I used to see all the positives of a team and player capable of shooting like that, I now see all the negatives of a team that suddenly has to.

Again, I'm trying to adjust. Trying to enjoy what they are.

But I can't stop thinking about what they could, in fact, become. So I think they need to make a trade for some rim protection. I think Curry, even if you don't think he's the best player on the team, needs to play like he is. It's harder to justify taking crazy shots when Kevin Durant is standing next to you. It seems selfish. But as I said at the top, when Curry is right, which in turn is when the Warriors are at their best, he is selfish. He's hunting shots. He's thinking like a ruthless scorer, with any facilitating a byproduct. Whether he's making those shots or not, the sheer aggression changes everything. The spacing. The energy. The chaos. And maybe more than anything, I just love watching him in video game mode. I think we all do.

But so far, he's only taking two isolation shots per game.

He went 0 for 10 against the Lakers.

See. I'm turning glass half empty again. So I'm going to stop. I swear.

Just as soon as the they're perfect.