For nearly two full NBA seasons, I read a lot about the Golden State Warriors. I saw the occasional clip.

But not once in the two seasons in which the Warriors upended the NBA with a rain of three-pointers … did I see as many as five consecutive minutes of any game live. That can happen, when you live in Abu Dhabi or France.

That changed today, during Game 3 of the Western Conference championship series, which I watched, and I have to ask: What’s all the fuss about?”

These were the all-conquering Warriors, who “changed the game”, won a championship last season and produced the the league’s MVP, Stephen Curry, in consecutive seasons.

Then they set an NBA record this season by winning 73 regular-season games.

They were analyzed, idealized and canonized.

They took the idea of shooting only layups or threes to a new level. They spotted up shooters and spread the court and left opponents chasing, only to see Curry or Klay Thompson bomb in a three-pointer or find a teammate for a layup.

Today, during a current visit to Southern California, I finally got a chance to see them, in real time, on live TV.

And the Warriors stunk it up.

Final score: Oklahoma City 133, Golden State 105.

A couple of questions:

–Does a “historically great” team lose by 28, after trailing by 41, and giving up 45 points in the third quarter?

–Are the Warriors a little lacking in a physical dimension, in terms of strength and speed? They sure looked like it as what looked like a bigger, stronger, faster Oklahoma City atomized them.

Yes, yes, I know. They won a championship last year after trailing 2-1 in two series — same as they trail OKC now. They won all those games this season. They are deep and talented.

But when I finally got a chance to see them live, they were horrible, and it is hard to un-see what I just saw. As opposed to read about.

One notion that struck me was this: The Warriors seemed to try to play at a pace not even they found sustainable. They rushed everything. It was the Thunder that looked comfortable in a game played at break-neck speed.

Game 4 now becomes pretty much a must-win for the Warriors. And they will not win if they shoot as poorly (38-for-92, 7-for-17 for Curry) and defend as poorly (OKC ,50 percent from the field) … and if Draymond Green, the Warriors big man some suggested is the game’s second-best player (after Curry) is dominated in the paint again.

Green now may be best-known among casual fans for kicking Thunder center Steven Adams in the groin in the second quarter — by which time the game was already getting away from Golden State.

Not only did it turn Green into an object of scorn and derision among OKC fans, it went a ways towards taking the white hats off the Warriors — the gutty little high-skill, tactically adept team that became America’s Team — whose second-best player kicks people in the groin.

They have to be better than this, don’t they? They must be.

But they will need to demonstrate over the next two (or more) games … and I will be watching for at least two of them.