OKLAHOMA CITY -- Before the game, it was the same as always: Stephen Curry on the baseline, going through his superhuman ball-handling tricks, and then working his way to seemingly every tile of flooring to put up shot after shot after shot.
Most of them, going in.
Finally, there was an impossibly lofty heave from the corner, behind the backboard, that went swish. Curry pointed to the crowd on his way to the locker room. Even on the road, the cheers rose.
That was the highlight of Stephen Curry's night.
The rest of it was miserable.
Once the ball went up Sunday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder were going downhill. Unstoppable. They chased the two-time MVP and the best basketball spectacle on Earth clear off the floor and into a grim locker room for some serious soul searching.
It was a beatdown, plain and simple.
And a sign that all of us have underestimated Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Thunder.
"For us," Curry said after the Thunder claimed a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series with a 133-105 evisceration of the Warriors, "it can't be about what the other team's doing."
Oh, but that's where he's wrong. It can be, and it was.
The Thunder have found some things they can use to exploit the 73-win Warriors. A lot of things. They beat Golden State by going big in Game 1. They beat them Sunday night by going small.
One constant has been Oklahoma City's length and size on the perimeter, making what are normally easy looks at the defense for Curry just a bit more difficult -- just enough to throw off his rhythm and make the Warriors lose patience. Curry was 3-for-11 from 3-point range in Game 3, and it seemed like every time he lined up a shot, he had a 7-footer or close to it with a hand in his face. That's the first area where Thunder coach Billy Donovan has earned his stripes in this series, throwing Kevin Durant, Andre Roberson, Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams at Curry to make his life a living hell.
"Some of the things that are usually open aren't there," said Draymond Green, who was 1-for-9 and a non-factor, except for kicking Adams in the groin -- a flagrant-1 that the league will review Monday to see if a suspension is warranted. "We have to do a better job of, when those things aren't there, staying patient. When things that you're used to getting all of a sudden aren't there, you lose patience and all of a sudden I want to do it myself or someone else wants to do it himself."
Roberson, who came through with 14 points in the Game 6 closeout of the Spurs, has responded to Donovan's unlikely confidence in him. In a starting lineup made up 100 percent of Thunder draft picks -- who does that anymore? -- Roberson is the least known. He had 13 points Sunday night, going 3-for-5 from 3-point range.
In other words, he made as many threes as Curry.
Nobody should count on that in Game 4, or maybe ever again. But with the Warriors' defense so locked in on Durant and Westbrook -- who are so damn good they combined for 63 points on 20-for-34 shooting, anyway -- Donovan was calling plays for Roberson in the third quarter. He went 3-for-3 as Oklahoma City put up 45 points in the quarter to put the game out of reach.
All of this is to point out that perhaps we've all forgotten how good a healthy Thunder team really is. As they put up the highest-scoring game in these playoffs, it was a reminder that there's only one team in the NBA that's had a higher offensive rating over the past five years than Oklahoma City this season.
That would be this season's Warriors.
I never thought the outcome of this series, either way, was going to sway Durant's free-agent decision this summer. He's smarter than that; better than that. But let me ask the question, anyway: Where is he going, exactly, where he'll have a better chance to win than right where he is?
Golden State has been here before, falling behind 2-1 to the Cavaliers in last year's Finals before winning four straight games. Underestimating them is a fool's errand. But what has become obvious through three games in the Western Conference finals is that a healthy Thunder team with Durant and Westbrook clicking like this is by far the biggest challenge the Warriors have faced in the postseason the past two years.
They beat the Cavs without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. They've beaten Houston twice, Memphis and Portland.
None of those teams had Durant or Westbrook, much less both of them. Which prompted a rival scout to ask me Sunday night to imagine the following world with a bit of revisionist history.
If you could go back to opening night of the 2014-15 season and ask yourself which team you'd be willing to put money on to win an NBA title -- the Thunder or the Warriors -- what would you have said? This was before Durant broke his foot last season and missed 55 games. This was before the Warriors won their first title in 40 years, and before they won a league-record 73 games this season.
If you go back in time, the answer is pretty simple.
"You'd say Oklahoma City," the scout said. "By a mile."
There are many miles to go before this series is over. Many tricks up Steve Kerr's sleeve, and probably no more shooting nights like this for Curry.
But if nothing else, I think we can put the notion that the Thunder are just here to escort the Warriors into the Finals -- and Durant out of town -- to bed. It never made any sense, really, and makes even less now.
The greatest basketball show on Earth wasn't Steph Curry on Sunday night. It was Durant and Westbrook, running downhill, unstoppable. Together.
