Houston >> The Warriors blew a 31-point lead and looked completely out of sorts in the fourth quarter, only to ultimately hold on.

Facing an upstart Rockets team led by Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green, Golden State hit 12 of its first 20 3-pointers and played smothering defense.

But as dominant as they were in the first half, they collapsed just as hard in the second.

Ball pressure gave Warriors dribblers constant trouble. Offensive possessions became ugly. Houston’s 3-point shots started to fall — just like the Warriors’ did in the first half.

And when they could have sealed the game in regulation, the Warriors gave up a 3 and Draymond Green threw away an inbounds pass. Tari Eason sent the game to overtime with two free throws on a foul that ended Green’s night.

Even though Green had fouled out, and Brandin Podziemski joined him two minutes into the overtime period, the Warriors still had enough juice to win the five-minute nail-biter.

Behind Buddy Hield (27 points and six 3-pointers) — who has led the Warriors in scoring in five of six games — and clutch play from Podziemski and Jonathan Kuminga, Golden State escaped with a 127-121 win. The bench tallied 71 points and the Warriors, despite getting run off the arc in the second half, hit 15 of their 31 3-pointers.

Even though Golden State’s defense bled buckets in the second half, it bottled up Jalen Green, who entered the night averaging 27.6 points per game, and Fred VanVleet. The Houston starting backcourt finished 4-for-25 for 18 combined points.

With a third straight victory, the Warriors have already won as many games without Steph Curry as they did last season.

Moses Moody sank a pair of 3s, one from each corner, to key a 13-4, game-opening run.

The Warriors intend to make defense their identity this season, and it showed in the first quarter when they held Houston to 20 points on 33% shooting.