OAKLAND, Calif. -- The basketball gods have been especially cruel this season. It started with Gordon Hayward going down in the first game of the season and their wrath has been passed on to DeMarcus Cousins, Kristaps Porzingis, Kawhi Leonard and, most recently, Jimmy Butler.

They owe us one.

But all can be forgiven with one simple solution: Give us the Golden State Warriors-Oklahoma City Thunder playoff series we so justly deserve.

Saturday's 112-80 win by the Warriors was just the latest in a series of games this season that have looked more like postseason wars than ho-hum regular-season affairs. It looked and felt like a playoff game on Saturday, and there's a reason why.

"It did, and that was the way we approached it," Warriors forward Draymond Green said when asked if it felt like a playoff game. "We approached it like we needed to win this game. We came out with a defensive mindset, then we executed."

This time, however, it was about more than the basketball. The game was punctuated by the bitter taste of bad blood, taking a potential Warriors-Thunder playoff series from a desire to an absolute must.

Even before everything that happened on Saturday, OKC-Golden State has been fun for the last two seasons because of the built in theater -- Kevin Durant, the carpetbagger, playing against the team he abandoned, and Russell Westbrook, the loyal, menacing, furious former running mate seething at the brim to destroy him. Westbrook's intensity makes any playoff matchup a delight to watch, but the level of competition against the defending world champs seems to bring out his inner fire more than most.

For example, Nick Young got into full swag mode in the third quarter, capping his frenzy off with a buzzer-beating 3 from the corner accompanied by his trademark shoulder shimmy. Westbrook wasn't about to stand idly by while it happened right in front of his bench, so he pushed Swaggy P back from whence he came.

This wasn't the only playoff-level chippiness that went on during the game. Not even close. There was also Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony drawing double technical fouls after getting into it in the second quarter.

Then, in the third quarter, Anthony pointed his frustrations toward Draymond Green (who earned his 15th technical of the season earlier in the game -- otherwise he may have been more willing to engage with Melo).

But then there was the ultimate trademark of any truly intense Warriors playoff series: The opposing team accusing Zaza Pachulia of trying to injure them. After both players battled for a rebound late in the third quarter, Pachulia fell onto Westbrook, and Russ didn't for one second think it was an accident.

"Obviously it was intentional," Westbrook said after the game. "He fell over my leg. He tried to hurt me."

Yup. It's on.

The intensity was palpable as Oracle Arena was more raucous than it's been all season, and it showed why a playoff series between the Thunder and Warriors would provide all the drama that we need after the doldrums of an 82-game season.

But then there's this other wrinkle -- the Thunder could actually win the series.

Oklahoma City, with its newly formed Big Three of Westbrook, Paul George and Anthony, walloped the Warriors by a combined 37 points in their first two meetings. So what was the difference this time? Take a look at the shooting numbers for the OKThree:

  • Westbrook: 4-for-15, 1-for-5 3-pointers
  • Anthony: 6-for-17, 1-for-6 3-pointers
  • George: 1-for-14, 1-for-9 3-pointers

The Warriors attributed their opponents' poor shooting night to a renewed focus on defense. Surely that played some part, but the odds of all three of those guys shooting that poorly in the same game has to be, say, one in seven? Chances are at least one of Westbrook, George and Anthony will play well in any given game of a playoff series, which will make it very difficult for the Warriors to pull away the way they did on Saturday.

And get this, even at halftime -- with Westbrook, George and Anthony shooting a combined 5-for-27 from the field -- the Thunder only trailed by seven points because of their defense and offensive rebounding. The Thunder present style and matchup issues for the Warriors unlike any other team, and even Kevin Durant admitted after the game that they perceive OKC to be a real threat.

"It was a good test against a great team, a team we may see down the line, a team that's gonna give us some trouble," Durant said. "So it was good to play well on the defensive side of the ball."

Westbrook, his former cohort, was much less forthcoming with the praise for the Warriors.

"I'm not worried about that," Westbrook said of a potential playoff matchup with Golden State. "I never have, I never will be. Only worry about our team and that's it."

Please, somebody make this happen. Whether it's the conference semifinals, the conference finals ... hell, even the first round if the Thunder drop in the standings. We need to see this.

Come on, basketball gods ... you owe us one.