Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr warned his side were peaking, as they are on the verge of a landmark NBA Finals appearance.
The Warriors lead the Houston Rockets 3-0 in the Western Conference Finals, and can seal progression to the championship-deciding series in game four at the Toyota Center in Texas on Monday.
After four- and one-point victories gave them a 2-0 lead heading to Houston, the Warriors demolished the home side 115-80 in game three on Saturday - leading Kerr to label the match as a display as some of the top seeds in the West's best.
The Warriors led 62-37 at half-time, and built their season record against the Rockets to 7-0 with the easiest win of the lot.
The Golden State franchise needs just one more victory to earn their maiden berth in the NBA's showpiece.
"I thought the first half was for sure one of our best halves of the year, and as I said after the game, the beautiful part of that for me was that we didn't even shoot the ball well, and yet it was a great half because we defended and we took care of the ball," Kerr said at Sunday's training day.
"Those are the two most important things for us on a nightly basis. If we defend and we take care of the ball, which obviously go hand in hand, we take care of the ball, we're going to defend better.
"We're not going to be playing in transition. When we do those two things, we tend to be really good."
Rockets coach Kevin McHale did not mince his words ahead of game four, claiming his side just had to increase their work-rate.
"They [Golden State] played better. They out rebounded us, they out hustled us," said McHale, who is tasked with trying to pull off the first comeback from 3-0 down in an NBA play-offs series.
"I said last night, nothing changed last night. If we don't win the points in the paint, don't win the rebound battle, we don't win a lot of games. You can look at our record throughout the course of the year. We've got to win at least one of those, and if we win both of those, we do pretty well.
"They had 17 offensive rebounds, they had too many of them. They had a lot of second chance points.
"They got threes off their offensive rebounds. They were quicker to loose balls than we were. They played better than we did.
"We've just got to play better.
"I don't know how much psychologist you can do after you've played this much basketball, but you don't have a whole lot of options.
"We've got to come out and we've got to play better. We just have got to play better."