Barber: Warriors perfectly prepared for final showdown

SAN ANTONIO - If the Fight of the Century is coming, one of the boxers has entered the ring.

The Warriors dispatched the Spurs 129-115 at AT&T Center on Monday night with all the drama and ceremony of a 3,000-mile oil change, claiming another victim in these 2017 NBA playoffs. Presumably, they now await the Cleveland Cavaliers, who stumbled against Boston in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference series but remain the favorites to set up an NBA Finals re-rematch on June 1.

You should start building a retaining wall now, because if Cleveland seals the deal you are in for a landslide of stories on Dubs-Cavs III. Is Zaza Pachulia healthy? Can LeBron James be stopped? Can Kevin Durant get his first ring? Is rookie Patrick McCaw ready for the spotlight? Which Kevin Love will show up? What's wrong with Klay Thompson? Can the Warriors avenge the Curse of the 3-1 Lead?

All of it, and so much more, is headed your way.

That's for tomorrow, though. For now, let's pause for a little context. Let's take a step back and consider what the Warriors have already accomplished. They are, after all, the first team in NBA history to begin the postseason 12-0.

Larry Bird's Celtics never did it. Nor did Michael Jordan's Bulls, or Tim Duncan's Spurs, or the Lakers of Magic Johnson or Shaquille O'Neal.

It's another milestone for a team that has surpassed many over the past three years. Those included 3-point records and the NBA's first unanimous MVP vote for Stephen Curry, a 24-game winning streak to start the season, a 73-9 regular-season mark (all in 2015-16), and three consecutive seasons of 67-plus victories.

And now 12 consecutive wins to start the postseason, chopped into series sweeps of Portland, Utah and San Antonio.

Informed by last year's Finals collapse, the Warriors players and coaches know better than to crow about it. Like 73-9, 12-0 will be just another shiny collectible if they don't end up with the trophy. This idea was repeated time and again after Monday's clinching win.

Stephen Curry said it: “It's a really cool accomplishment, one you can talk about for a second. But you've got to be able to turn the page and get ready for the gauntlet of winning four more games.”

And Klay Thompson: “Twelve-and-oh is pretty spectacular, but we're trying to get four more, because that 12-0 means nothing if we don't accomplish our main goal.”

And Draymond Green: “It's not like you get some trophy or something for being undefeated throughout the first three rounds of the playoffs. Like I said before, it's about winning the championship, and we're four games away from that.”

They were 100-percent right, of course. The 12-game playoff winning streak is only a steppingstone.

But it's a pretty incredible one. The NBA playoffs are a brutal environment. Every arena on the road is a house of horrors. Every opponent is capable of beating you. Every mini-run of turnovers or missed shots could prove disastrous. To march through 12 of those obstacles without face-planting even once is a tribute to what this team has become.

After the Warriors' Monday- morning shootaround, I bumped into Hubie Brown, the legendary NBA coach and network analyst. He's working for ESPN now. Brown followed the title-is-everything theme, but he couldn't deny the allure of 12-0.

“It puts you in another category, so it's another feather in your cap, no doubt about it,” he said. “Because it takes so much to do that. You just can't be an offensive machine. You just can't be a defensive (team) with a so-so offense.”

And yeah, I get it, the Warriors caught some breaks. Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic, a key cog in their system, missed the bulk of the first-round series in the aftermath of a major leg injury. Much more significant, the Spurs' Kawhi Leonard, an NBA Most Valuable Player finalist, played into the third quarter of the first game of the Western Conference final before re-injuring his ankle and retiring to the bench. His absence crippled San Antonio.

Let's be real, though. The Warriors were without Kevin Durant, their most impressive player lately, for two games in the Portland series when he strained his calf. And they have rolled through most of the playoffs with an interim head coach, Mike Brown, while his boss, Steve Kerr, continues his grueling recovery from a spinal-related illness.

You can praise the Warriors' chain of command all you want, and you can point out that Kerr has continued to offer strategic input, but how do you think the Spurs would do if Gregg Popovich weren't on the bench during the playoffs?

So 12-0 is a big deal. What I was wondering after Game 4 is how it compares to 73-9 and 24-0.

Curry, like an overprotective father, refused to rank them.

“They're special,” he said. “I think it would be a disservice to each of those experiences to try to compare them, because you really can't.”

But we can try, right? I've always thought that the 24-0 start was an underrated accomplishment, eventually overshadowed by 73-9. The early portion of the season usually comes with some growing pains, even for a team returning mostly intact. For the Warriors to rip through nearly 30 percent of their schedule without a loss was ridiculous.

But I'm pretty sure 12 is half of 24. And postseason victories seem at least twice as hard as regular-season wins to me. Ian Clark, who played well off the bench Monday, agreed.

“For me personally, it's big, because playoffs are way tougher than the regular season,” he said after the game. “Teams are locked in, scouting reports, intangibles. Guys are playing shorter rotations and everything like that. So being able to start 12-0 is very special. Obviously, it doesn't really matter as long as we get 12 wins and get to the finals. That's the main goal. But I don't think that guys are gonna overlook this at all.”

Ultimately, 73-9 might wind up the more memorable number. There was more time to watch it unfold, more hours to compare the Warriors to Jordan's 1995-96 Bulls, who had gone 72-10. By April of 2016, a lot of hype was surrounding the effort.

Then again, there's a path to eclipsing 73-9. It's by adding four more wins to the postseason streak. Now that would truly make these Warriors legendary.

“It's right up there,” Thompson said of 12-0, “but it would be a lot bet to go 16-0. We know that would be hard. But we're not satisfied just going 12-0, we've got a long way to go.”

And with that, we can dispense with the glowing accolades and get back to the real business - settling the East finals and fighting for the NBA championship.