Barber: Warriors' opening loss no reason to hit alarm, yet

OAKLAND - It was Opening Night at Oracle Arena, and Banner Night, and Ring Night. Steve Kerr has been through a few of those before. He won three NBA championships as a player with the Bulls and two more playing for the Spurs, and he got one as Warriors coach two years ago.

Asked before the game for his Ring Night memories, Kerr said, “I think I did tell (former commissioner) David Stern that we have to stop meeting like this. I think it was my fourth year in a row that I was lucky enough to be on a championship team.”

Kerr continued: “And then the game is always tough. It's an emotional night, and then all of a sudden you just tip it up and play. But our guys will be ready.”

About that …

The Warriors didn't exactly sleepwalk through Tuesday night's 122-121 loss to the Houston Rockets, not like they did in last year's opener here against San Antonio.

The game was pretty exciting, actually. But the Warriors lost, something they're not expected to do very often this season.

If you're looking for reasons to suspect that this season will be something more than a game of hopscotch for the defending champions, this game checked a lot of boxes.

The most obvious is the injury factor. It's a wild card that announced itself even before the game started. In the press dining area a couple hours before tipoff here, the TVs were split between the Astros-Yankees game and the NBA's other kickoff event, Celtics at Cavaliers. Suddenly, half the room simultaneously gasped or groaned. Gordon Hayward had suffered a devastating, disgusting fracture of his tibia.

Kerr brought up the injury before his game when asked about his Warriors being prohibitive favorites this year.

“This stuff is so fragile,” he said. “I just watched Gordon Hayward fall down and injure his leg, and it was terrifying. The whole coach's office was just devastated watching it unfold. Just shows you the fragile nature of what we do. You put yourself in the best position to succeed and win, and you go for it, but there's so many things that can happen.”

And then the Warriors got their own small taste of mortality. It was nothing like Hayward's season-ending fracture. But Andre Iguodala, Golden State's invaluable sixth man and stick-tight defender, sat out the game with back pain. And Draymond Green, one of the Warriors' Big Four, left late in the third quarter when he bumped his knee and/or landed on it awkwardly.

Another factor that bit the Warriors in this one: The reconfigured NBA. Kerr's team won the Larry O'Brien Trophy almost too easily last year. The Warriors had the best record in the NBA, and made a mockery of the postseason by winning 15 of 16 games. With an entire season in blue-and-gold under Kevin Durant's belt, and with cagey offseason pickups like Nick Young and Omri Casspi, the Warriors opened the 2017-18 season as the biggest preseason favorites in the history of the sport, or maybe all sports.

But some other teams got better, too. The Celtics looked like one of them, though Hayward's injury undermines that considerably. But Oklahoma City appears to have climbed a couple rungs with the addition of All-Stars Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. And the Rockets acted aggressively in signing Chris Paul, one of the best point guards of his generation.

The big question for Houston entering the season was whether Paul and James Harden could coexist productively in the backcourt. They didn't struggle a lot Tuesday night. Harden led all scorers with 27 points, and while Paul didn't shoot well, he wound up with 11 assists and eight rebounds.

Perhaps most encouraging for the Rockets, though, was the play of Eric Gordon. The veteran guard had several powerful drives (including a monster slam over rookie Jordan Bell) and finished with 24 points.

That doesn't mean the Rockets will beat Golden State on other nights. Before the game, I asked Houston coach Mike D'Antoni if his team would prove anything significant by winning in Game 1.

“Nope,” he said. “I mean, we play Sacramento (Wednesday). And that game counts just as much as this game. So every game's important. And rightly so, everybody makes a big deal one way or the other. (But) it means nothing, as it did last year. We won't be the same team in April. They won't be the same team, nobody'll be the same team.”

There's more reason to remain cautious, and it was on full display Tuesday night. It's hoopla. This was a party night for Bay Area basketball fans, and for their team, too. They danced and hugged and blew kisses before the game as they received their championship rings and unfurled the newest banner at Oracle.

They deserved every moment of frivolity, too. As Kerr is fond of saying, there's a reason guys pour champagne on one another when they win a title. These things are difficult to come by.

But it's fair to say that the Warriors' 2017-18 campaign will be defined largely by their ability to withstand the hoopla. Everyone is constantly telling these guys how great they are, how they are destined to win additional rings. Will they fall victim to their own entitlement? You wouldn't think so. This is a veteran and seemingly well-grounded team, with locker-room philosophers like David West and humble heroes like Stephen Curry and butt-kickers-when-necessary like Draymond Green.

The Warriors did a cool thing before this game. They invited men to represent the four previous championships in franchise history, including the two won by the Philadelphia Warriors. Jamaal Wilkes was there for the 1975 Warriors. He played for the great Lakers teams of the 1980s, too, and I asked him if this Warriors group might be remembered as the best ever.

Wilkes said the proof will be in the pudding, but he likes the Warriors' chances.

“I think they really get that this is not gonna last forever,” he said. “And when I come to a game, I just feel a sense of urgency in the air, and I'm excited.”

The Warriors did some good things against the Rockets, got some nice contributions from role players. But they didn't have the sense of urgency that defines a champion. They've got 81 more games to figure it out.