OAKLAND -- Cleveland beckons, and it's a place the Warriors do not wish to visit this week. The only way to avoid it, though, is with a robust reaction to the wakeup call they didn't think they needed.
And, oh, yes, that 21-point loss to the Cavaliers in Game 4 was the loudest alarm the Warriors have heard since opening night of the regular season, when San Antonio Spurs barged into Oracle Arena and impolitely reminded them that, no matter the number of stars on the roster, victory on most nights in the NBA is not given but taken.
The same applies to the NBA Finals.
To hear them tell it, they're eyes have been appropriately widened.
"We didn't play up to the level we were supposed to, and they exposed that and took advantage of it and came out and played extremely well," Kevin Durant said.
"This is our second opportunity to close this thing out and you don't want to keep letting the series prolong," Draymond Green said. "So you have to come out with a killer instinct and a punch-to-the-face mentality."
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That's the mentality Cleveland brought into Game 4 last Friday night.
It's also the mentality the Warriors carried into Game 4 in Portland, where they piled up a 28-5 first-quarter lead and won by 25.
The mentality they carried into Game 4 at Utah, where they quickly built a 24-7 lead and won by 26.
The mentality they carried into Game 4 San Antonio, where they went up 21-7, led by as much as 22 and won by 14.
The Cavaliers are different and more imposing beasts, to be sure, but hardly are they unassailable -- particularly in Oakland. They have lost their three games at Oracle by an average of 25.3 points.
Conditions are ripe for the Warriors to summon their inner exterminator. They're at home, they've been provoked and they're still the deeper and more versatile team.
"We have a lot of guys who play, so we are comfortable making a couple tweaks here or there, rotation change, stuff like that," coach Steve Kerr said. "We may do some of that.
"But I always say the biggest adjustment in the playoffs that you make is always an emotional one. You can tweak some things, but are we going to play hard? Are we going to get after it and compete? Or are we going to do what we did (in Game 4), which is allow 3-point shooters to get open, get broken down at the point of attack, give up offensive boards? That's up to us."
The Warriors know better than any team that the Cavaliers don't fold, that they must be folded. They look at being down 3-1 and recall it didn't prevent them from beating the Warriors three straight times last June to take the championship. Their fans also believe, chanting "Cavs in seven" in the final minutes of Game 4.
"You have to give them credit for how they played," Durant said. "It's not only just because we didn't play well; they came out there and took it to us. So you have to give them credit. And they can duplicate that. We have to be ready for it."
Ready for Cavaliers to aim and launch, as they did in raining a Finals-record 24 3-pointers in Game 4. And ready for Cavs big man Tristan Thompson, who came out of hibernation in Game 4 to grab 10 rebounds after finding only 11 in the previous three games.
"They're capable," Klay Thompson said. "They have done it throughout the whole playoffs.
"But it's on us. They can definitely repeat it, so we got to do the job to stop them and make them uncomfortable. If they're comfortable, they can definitely do it again. But there should be no excuse in our home building playing at home."
That's the thought. That's the reality. And if the Warriors don't find a way to close it out Monday night, they'll be going back to a place they don't care to go with a feeling they don't care to experience.
They'll be going back to Cleveland, followed all too closely by the ghosts of last June.
