SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors offered the Sacramento Kings and the rest of the NBA a refresher course Sunday night on what makes them tick.

Here's a hint: It is not their offense.

"I'm not saying we're invincible. We've proven that," Curry said after Golden State's stifling third-quarter defense turned a potentially bad loss into a 117-106 victory over Sacramento at the Golden 1 Center. "But (defense) gives us our best shot to let our talent shine at the other end."

That talent was on display during a 39-point blitz immediately after halftime that turned a 58-51 deficit at intermission into the Warriors' 13th straight win over their Northern California rivals. The Warriors have played 124 straight contests without losing consecutively, the longest streak in NBA history.

Curry scored 17 of his game-high 30 points in the second half, and Kevin Durant added 28 points for Golden State.

The Warriors (32-6) ripped Sacramento 22-3 during a 5:06 stretch of the third quarter that turned a 64-55 deficit into a 77-67 lead. Golden State forced six straight missed shots and four turnovers during the turnaround.

"We didn't defend in the first half," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "We kind of started to the last five minutes of the second quarter, and we knew that we had to make them feel us defensively. The third quarter started, we did a much better job of getting into them."

The defense woke up the Warriors offensively. Golden State canned 15 of 25 shots in the third quarter, including half of its eight 3-point attempts.

The Warriors stumbled through 9 of 23 shooting in the first quarter, including 2 of 9 from long distance, in falling behind 33-24.

Curry also got rolling after halftime, knocking down 5 of 7 shots, including 2 of 3 from beyond the arc.

Golden State also turned in the defensive performance only two nights after squandering a 24-point second-half lead in an overtime loss at home to the Memphis Grizzlies. After that game, Warriors forward Draymond Green pointed to the team's offense as a reason for the struggles. Green finished with nine points, 10 assists and seven rebounds against Sacramento.

"A lot has been said about our fourth-quarter offense and execution and lineups," Curry said. "But if we can work through that while getting stops and using the length and activity that we usually have at (the defensive) end, we'll be all right."

Rudy Gay, playing in only his second game since missing 9 of 10 because of a hip flexor, scored a team-high 23 points for Sacramento. However, the Kings (15-22) have lost the first three on a season-high seven-game homestand, and they welcome the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday.

"Tremendous effort from our guys," King coach Dave Joerger said. "I'm very proud of the effort we put forth. We battled like crazy, and (the Warriors) put you in some tough situations. ... They got out and ran too many times on us."

DeMarcus Cousins, Sacramento's leading scorer, got into foul trouble early and finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds in 29 minutes. Cousins has been held to 42 points on 13-of-30 shooting in the Kings' past two contests.

"Teams are loading up on him the last couple of games," Kings forward Anthony Tolliver said. "It's up to him and us to make the adjustments to open up the lanes for him."

Tolliver, receiving a rare start, scored 16 for Sacramento. Garrett Temple and Darren Collison each added 14, and Ty Lawson had 15 points off the bench.

Sacramento jumped on Golden State early. Gay scored 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the opening period, and the Kings made 13 of 24 shots in the first 12 minutes.

"They're a really, really good team, and we were right there for the majority of the game," Tolliver said. "So you can take that as a positive. ... It's up to us to keep each other accountable to play that hard all the time."

Klay Thompson finished with 18 points, and Zaza Pachulia scored 10 for the Warriors, who played their only road contest in a stretch of 10 games. Golden State's next five are at home.

NOTES: The NBA streamed the Golden State-Sacramento game on Facebook Live to its audience in India, the first contest to be live-streamed through social media in the league's history. Kings owner Vivek Ranadive grew up in India. ... Warriors coach Steve Kerr called timeout 18 seconds into the contest after Kings C DeMarcus Cousins scored on a driving dunk after a missed double-team assignment on Sacramento's first possession. "I didn't holler or anything," Kerr said. "It's just something we needed to talk about." ... Kings coach Dave Joerger inserted G Anthony Tolliver into the starting lineup for only the second time this season, breaking up the guard combination of Ty Lawson and Darren Collison that started the previous contest. Joerger has used 10 starting lineups this season. ... The Warriors' 13-game winning streak against the Kings is the longest streak for one team in the series between Northern California rivals since the Kings won 15 in a row from 1999-2003.