After smacking the Golden State Warriors in their first two meetings of the year, the Oklahoma City Thunder - for all their obvious flaws - had come to be viewed by many as the biggest non-Rockets threat to Golden State's Western Conference autocracy.

There's been a lot of that sort of thing throughout the 2017-18 campaign; teams trying to talk themselves into the Warriors being vulnerable. Based solely on this season's body of work, there's been some cause for belief. Projection models like FiveThirtyEight's give the Rockets a better shot at winning the title, and the Raptors a better chance at making the Finals. The Warriors' metrics are excellent, but not at the historic levels they've been at the past three seasons. They've spent long stretches looking disengaged, tired, and bored. They haven't played with the kind of menace that's defined them in seasons past. And, most notably, their defense has been a shadow of the all-consuming force that used to swallow teams whole.

Or at least, it had been. The Warriors looked like the Warriors again on Saturday night, when they fed the Thunder a dose of cold reality with a 112-80 beatdown in front of a raucous Oracle Arena crowd.

The game was close for a while. Behind Steven Adams' rugged work on the interior, Paul George's dogged defense, and a group effort on the offensive glass, the Thunder overcame some cold shooting and actually had a 59-56 lead about four minutes into the third quarter. It was around that time, perhaps spurred in part by Carmelo Anthony's second flare-up of the game, that the Warriors snapped. They ripped off a quick 9-0 run to take back the lead. They then finished the third quarter on a 14-0 run, which was part of a 21-1 run, which was part of a 39-9 run, which ... you get the gist. The rest of the game was basically one long run.

Propelling that familiar-feeling Warriors avalanche was their defense, which suffocated any and every Thunder action with relentless ball pressure, activity, and speed. There were no late rotations, no haphazard switches, no concessions at the rim. There were just arms and hands everywhere, passing and driving lanes shut before they opened; pressure, pressure, and more pressure.

The Thunder shot 33 percent from the field and 26 percent from 3-point range for the game, and George - who'd torched the Warriors for 38 points in the teams' previous meeting - shot 1-of-14, matching Tim Hardaway for the fewest made field goals for any player with that many attempts in a game this season. Klay Thompson shot 1-of-11 from three, but was still a huge positive because of how ruthlessly he hounded George on the perimeter.

From Thompson to Draymond Green to Kevin Durant to Andre Iguodala to Shaun Livingston to David West, the Warriors were attentive, physical, quick on their feet, and savagely opportunistic. When the Thunder weren't forcing up contested late-clock jumpers, they were doing something even worse: coughing up live-ball turnovers, which jump-started a Golden State offense that the Thunder had managed to stymie for two-and-a-half games. This was the Warriors doing what the Warriors do best. It was complete mental and physical demoralization.

Maybe this version of the defending champs will continue to appear only sporadically. Maybe they'll go back to being checked out until the playoffs or until these two teams meet again in early April or until some other team gives them a reason to get fired up. Or maybe the All-Star break really did give them the reboot they needed to run rampant down the stretch.

Whatever the case, Saturday was a helpful reminder of what a locked-in Warriors defense looks like. It looks ... freaking terrifying.