It's Monday, the last day of April, and the Golden State Warriors will be playing basketball games in May. Imagine that.

What seemed so unlikely not quite two months ago - a playoff berth - was already made a reality. The reward? A first round meeting with the Dallas Mavericks, a team that finished 67-15, not only 6 games better than any other team in the league but 25 ahead of the Warriors.

Head-to-head, the Warriors went 3-0. The first game was won in Dallas before The Trade. The second was a demolition of a team that came to Oakland having won 17 in a row. The last was a night before the Warriors clinched, when Dallas sat four of their regulars. It was almost as if they were conceding the probability of the Warriors making the playoffs, setting up the matchup we have now. Talk was of how they didn't care who they faced in the first round. They had their sights set on the championship. How quickly things change.

After Friday night's win put the Warriors up 2-1 in the series, I wrote that the Oracle Arena rocked like it had never rocked before. It only took two days for that night to be surpassed, and it took the kind of game we were treated to to do it.

Dallas came out strong and finally looked like the best team in the league for much of the game, but here's the thing: the Warriors never went away. The Mavs had a solid first quarter but they ended it only up six.

Advantage: Warriors, sort of.

Behind a superb first half by Josh Howard, Dallas continued to play well in the second and looked like they'd be heading into the break with some momentum after Dirk Nowitzki scored with a second left and got fouled. His free throw put them up by three. Then Baron Davis banked in a buzzer-beater from halfcourt that sent the crowd into a frenzy.

Advantage: Warriors, definitely.

They came out and hit a couple quick 3-pointers to open the second half and Dallas took a quick timeout. Next thing you know, Howard was disappearing but Jerry Stackhouse picked up the slack as he helped lead the Mavs on a 21-7 run that put them up by eight. Yet again, the Warriors fought back and after Davis stole an inbounds pass with a handful of seconds left and dunked, it was tied again.

Advantage: Warriors, clearly.

Twelve more minutes would determine which team would have the edge. Would the Warriors maintain home court advantage and improbably go to Dallas up 3-1, or would the Mavs balance out their Game 1 loss and head back to the Lone Star State having evened the series?

As before, Dallas took the lead and nursed it for much of the quarter. Then, finally, the effect of the relentless Warriors and the hungry, noisy crowd finally made the difference in the last few minutes. Stephen Jackson made a huge triple from the right corner. Once again, it was Davis who came up big with a layup that gave the Warriors the lead. Then Davis made a perfect pass from the 3-point line in close to Andris Biedrins for a dunk as the Mavs defense was late to recover. The capper was a dish by one unsung hero to another as Jackson fed Matt Barnes for a back-breaking three with 23 seconds to go.

While Nowitzki made a pair of 3-pointers of his own to force the Warriors to make a few free throws to maintain their lead, it wasn't enough. Fittingly, after having no impact on the first three games, Mickael Pietrus played a key role in the win and cemented the outcome by stealing the inbounds pass at the end. A few moments later the final buzzer sounded, the Warriors had a very difficult 103-99 victory that was by far the closest game of the series, and they knew they'd be going back to Dallas with a chance to move on.

From a fan's perspective, we are witnessing something magical here. I've been a fan of this team since my first game in the mid-80s, so I've seen Run TMC and I've been through all the craptastic years since their last playoff berth in 1994. Last year they were "supposed" to make the playoffs but they crashed and burned again. It was the same old story, the same old Warriors.

It was happening again this season, then all of a sudden they turned it around and caught lightning in a bottle, as the saying goes. Now they're a game away from pulling off what would be widely considered as one of the biggest upsets in NBA playoff history, even if they'd already shown they were a team that could give Dallas a few fits. But it was the regular season, people said. The postseason is an entirely different beast. Dallas has been there. The Warriors haven't.

Yet here we are, the Mavericks a loss away from going home, the Warriors a win away from shocking the NBA. Scratch that. They've already done that much, but the fourth win would really top it off. There's talk of Nowitzki having to come back from an early vacation to accept the MVP award after a series in which he's done very little. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the Warriors taking 12 years of suck and tossing it aside like it was nothing? Believe it because it's true. I'm already as happy as I've ever been as a Warriors fan and being able to attend these last two games is something I'll never forget, but I'm going to be greedy now.

It's time to step on the throats of the Mavericks and finish this. Yes, the Warriors are happy to be there while getting some great experience out of this. Yes, no matter what happens, the buzz is back and people outside the Bay Area are paying attention to this team. Hell, Charles Barkley is on TNT cutting down the Warriors and the Bay Area and I love it because it's funny, it's entertaining, and it sure as hell beats only being mentioned when someone's talking about how pathetic this team has been. Now is the time to go out and take that big step and advance to the next round. The fourth win is the hardest, but these guys are ready for it. They stood toe to toe with the best team in the league on a night when they finally played with a sense of urgency, and look who won.

The Golden State Warriors.