Five random thoughts from NBA's opening night

With three games on the NBA opening night slate, fans were able to watch five playoff teams from a season ago tip off the action.

From a ring ceremony in Oakland and dominating performance by the defending NBA champions to a hard-fought game in Chicago between two of the East's top contenders, here are five random thoughts from the first night of the NBA season.

1. Golden State Warriors didn't miss a beat from last season

It took all of eight minutes after the ring ceremony anointing Golden State as defending champs for us to realize why this team actually hoisted the Larry O'Brien Trophy back in June. When Stephen Curry nailed a three pointer with 3:57 remaining in the first quarter, the Warriors hit the 32-point mark.

For his part, that shot brought Curry's point total to 19 about eight minutes into the season. The reigning NBA MVP would finish the opening stanza with 24 points en route to leading the Warriors to a whopping 39-point quarter. Multiple issues on defense did enable the New Orleans Pelicans to end the quarter down just four points.

That was the closest Anthony Davis and Co. would be for the remainder of the night. Golden State dominated in nearly every aspect of the game, at one point holding a 23-point lead early in the fourth quarter.

The defending champs were in no way perfect. Golden State turned it over 20 times, Klay Thompson put up just two more points (nine) than turnovers (seven) and New Orleans tallied 35 first quarter points.

That said, the Warriors were able to avoid a letdown on "ring night" — something we have seen happen for multiple defending champs over the years. Oh, and it still looks like Stephen Curry is playing NBA basketball on rookie mode. He finished with 40 points, six rebounds and seven assists. That point total is the most for a reigning MVP on opening night since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar back in 1971.

2. Defense wins the day for the Chicago Bulls 

It's rather obvious that the Bulls are attempting to up their tempo on offense under first-year head coach Fred Hoiberg. That showed up a great deal in the team's season-opening win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. However, it was the defense that came to play big time here.

Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah combined for a total of two points in 49 minutes of action. Normally, that type of stat line for the big men would have led to a blowout loss against the defending conference champions. Not on Tuesday night.

Aided by Gasol's block of LeBron James in the final seconds, Chicago showed that it can play darn good defensive basketball, even without Tom Thibodeau manning the bench.

Outside of the 25 points James put up, Cleveland was held to 70 points on 36 percent from the field. Noah and Gasol played solid basketball on the defensive end, but Chicago's backcourt also put up a solid performance there. Overall, Cavaliers guards were held to 33 points on 13-of-37 shooting. In reality, that made all the difference in the world.

The Bulls' offense will come alive under Hoiberg. That's not really in question. Instead, most of the concern was about how they would play on the defensive end. For one night, those questions were answered in grand fashion.

3. Great start for Stan Van Gundy and the Detroit Pistons

Taking on a 60-win Atlanta Hawks team from a season ago on the road in a season opener isn't necessarily the easiest of tasks. Doing so with two new starters magnifies that even further. But Detroit was more than up for the task in what ended up being a blowout win against the defending Southeast Division champs.

After an even opening stanza, Detroit won each of the final three quarters by five-plus points, pulling away to a 16-point lead heading into the final 12 minutes.

Offensively, it wasn't spectacular. Detroit shot less than 40 percent from the field, missed multiple uncontested perimeter shots and just didn't seem to be in a great flow throughout the night.

However, it was on the inside that the Pistons dominated. Andre Drummond put up 19 rebounds, including eight on the offensive glass. Reggie Jackson added seven more from the point guard position, as Detroit held a 19-rebound advantage when all was said and done.

It's this type of dominating inside game that will help the Pistons improve from the outside. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope led all starters in double figures with 21 points. Meanwhile, the team put up 23 assists on 37 made field goals. Giving them extra opportunities will cause major issues for opposing defenses.

All in all, this was a tremendous season-opening win for a Pistons squad with playoff aspirations. There definitely are things to work on, but Van Gundy has this team headed in the right direction.

4. Cleveland Cavaliers still too reliant on LeBron James

James shot 12-of-22 from the field en route to a solid season-opening performance. Without the services of Kyrie Irving, the rest of Cleveland's offense struggled big time. The team's other four starters shot 38 percent from the field, with both J.R. Smith and Timofey Mozgov struggling big time on the offensive end.

It seems like we have seen this story before. James didn't have to play 45 minutes and put up over 40-plus shots, mainly because it was a late October basketball game. But the entire offense seemed to run through him. And when he decided to get others involved, they simply looked lost out on the court.

That's most definitely not the way Cleveland wanted to start the season. James is going to need a bit more help from his supporting case in order to lead the Cavaliers to a second consecutive conference title. It's that simple.

5. Let's not overreact because of one bad game from Anthony Davis