The highly favorite defending NBA champions Golden State Warriors are suddenly now on the threshold of elimination and another defeat away from being dethroned.

The Warriors, who broke the long-standing NBA record of the mighty 1995-96 Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls of 72 victories in a single regular season, suffered their first back-to-back defeats this season. The reigning NBA kings were outscored and outplayed by the third-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder with another blowout victory.

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The Oakland-based team lost successive playoff matches by at least 20 points for the first time since Games Two and Three of their Western Conference semifinal matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks in 1972. After equalizing the series in Game Two, the Warriors endured two-straight losses in big margins, they lost by 28 points in Game Three (133-105) and by 24 points in Game Four (118-94).

The league's No. 1 regular season team, having won a record 73 wins with just 9 losses, are currently down in the series with a 3-1 deficit.  The Golden State team is now in a must-win situation and has to find the answer to beat the red-hot Thunder on Thursday in Game No. Five in the Oracle Arena to keep their hopes of another NBA title alive. The Warriors are 39-2 at home in the regular season and 7-1 this postseason.

"We all have to bounce back," Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. "The good news is, we go home. Obviously we play well at home. The idea now is to go home and get one win. Do that, and we put some pressure on them and we'll see what happens."

"We go home, lick our wounds a little bit," the 2015-16 NBA Coach of the Year said. "The idea is to take it one step at a time ... and we'll see where it all goes."

TagsGolden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City Thunder