Throughout the season, the Warriors have turned in most of their best performances against good teams. That isn’t particularly surprising, but this fact, combined with their poor record, shows what has come to define this team. They play well for most of the game, but make just enough mistakes down the stretch to come away with the loss. They have spent the first two months of the season wondering when they will get over the hump and get that breakthrough win.

On Christmas Day, they did just that, knocking off the Houston Rockets 116-104 for not only their third straight win, and not only their best win of the season by a wide margin, but one of the biggest upsets in the history of NBA Christmas games.

“I thought today was just an example of the hard work paying off and the perseverance,” Steve Kerr said. “Our players just stayed with it and everybody’s feeling great on Christmas day to get that win.”

The win was the result of a full team effort. The Rockets have two clear stars in James Harden and Russell Westbrook, while the Warriors do not have any player who can take over a game in the way that Houston’s duo can. As a result, Golden State needs contributions from up and down the lineup to have a chance to win. They got just that on Wednesday. Five players scored in double figures, including three with at least 20 points. Two players recorded double-doubles and four players dished out at least four assists as they totaled 27 dimes for the game. Damion Lee led the charge with 22 points and a jaw-dropping 15 rebounds, but Draymond Green added 20 points, 11 boards and two timely threes. D’Angelo Russell picked up another 20, Glenn Robinson III added 18 points including a couple of huge late-game buckets, and Willie-Cauley Stein rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points and four blocks.

The defensive execution was massively important to the victory as well. Throughout the game, the Warriors sent double teams at Harden well beyond the three-point line, sometimes at the moment he crossed halfcourt. The idea was clear: the Warriors were going to dare anyone else to beat them. Westbrook, Danuel House Jr., P. J. Tucker, Ben McLemore and Austin Rivers were all free to fire away from three — as long as Harden wasn’t driving and getting to the line. In many ways, it worked. Harden refused to cut or get open after passing the ball, and the ball movement stagnated as average shooters jacked up jumpers. Players not named Harden shot 24.4% from three. Harden shot just one free throw the entire game. The Warriors forced other players to step up and no one did so in an efficient manner.

After the game, Green praised Jarron Collins, the lead defensive assistant for the Warriors.

“You gotta give him a lot of credit for this win,” Green said. “You can’t execute it much better than we did today.”

In the second quarter, however, it didn’t seem like that would be the case. Non-Harden players hit a few shots and as a result, opportunities opened up for Harden. He splashed four threes en route to 16 points in the quarter as the Rockets lead peaked at 13. In spite of this, the Warriors stuck to the game plan. They never changed their attitude and stuck to the game plan and eventually, they were able to take Harden back out of his rhythm as he managed just five second-half points. The offense also improved as the Warriors stayed patient, executed well and got to the free-throw line repeatedly.

“We were making great plays on offense and in the beginning, shots just weren’t falling,” Lee said. “But [the key was] just knowing that those shots would eventually come back around.”

And once again, they executed down the stretch. It’s something they almost never did well in their first 29 games — and something they’ve done incredibly well in each of their last three games. They trailed 97-96 with 7:59 left in the fourth quarter, at which point they embarked on a 19-2 run to put the game away. They stuck to their game plan of taking the ball out of Harden’s hands, which worked to perfection, and executed extremely well on offense. It was a wildly entertaining stretch that left the Rockets shell-shocked and trying to figure out exactly what had just happened.

We are starting to see what the current incarnation of the Warriors can be when they play their best — competitive, but actually capable of winning games on a regular basis. It will be very exciting to see where they go next.