SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors don’t look like a playoff team because Stephen Curry is defying Father Time and playing a vintage, MVP-level season.

No, they look like a playoff team because they aren’t dying when he sits.

For the better part of this decade, Golden State’s minutes without Curry have resembled a burning trash barge shoved out to sea. You held your breath, prayed any lead wouldn’t evaporate before the six-minute mark of the fourth quarter, and waited for No. 30 to peel off his wraps and save them.

Not anymore. Not with this roster.

Thursday night’s 120-100 demolition of the Miami Heat wasn’t notable because Steph dropped 22 points in the second half to finish off another signature blitz. It was notable because nine Warriors of an 11-man rotation scored eight or more points.

Nine.

When you get that kind of across-the-board play, everything changes. It turns a lackluster 0-3 start into a six-game heater. It turns a team destined for play-in purgatory into an outfit capable of skipping a play-in tournament altogether.

It’s early days yet, but this team looks… competent.

All because they’re not totally lost without Curry on the floor.

To understand how radical this shift is, consider this:

In the last three seasons combined, Curry has only played 133 minutes more than he’s sat.

Yet the Warriors have scored 1,825 more points in those minutes than he’s been on the court. That’s 13 points of difference for every minute played.

That’s absurd.

Even in the Warriors’ most recent championship year, surviving without Steph was a high-wire act.

Now? Well, apparently it’s where games get put to bed.

Night night.

Take Thursday night’s fourth quarter against Miami, for example. Curry checked out of the game with roughly 7 minutes remaining. The Warriors were up 17, and things were looking good. But when the Heat cut it to 12 two minutes later, the Chase Center crowd got quiet, and Steve Kerr still had Curry on the bench.

He never had to check back in.

Instead, a lineup featuring Brandin Podziemski, rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, Charles Bassey, Georges Niang and Brandon Williams — a real who’s who — torched Miami across a decisive three-minute stretch upon Niang’s entry with 4:22 to play.

Podziemski is no longer just a high-energy scrapper. He’s playing with veteran poise, directing traffic and keeping possessions fluid without gumming up the gears.

Lendeborg has been a game-changer, a season-changer, and a franchise-changer. The rookie is a near-guarantee for at least 15, 5, and 5 nightly, handling creation and shot-making duties on the second unit like he’s in Year 6, not Game 9. It isn’t always perfect, but his less-than-stellar is still additive for the Dubs.

And don’t sleep on Will Richard, who didn’t close but stepped into the starting lineup on Thursday and delivered the exact kind of two-way discipline and spacing that lineup craved. He doesn’t need plays drawn up for him; he just makes the right cut, rotates on a string and hits open looks.

Finally, we need to talk about Charles “Basketball” Bassey, a man worthy of such a lofty nickname.

I questioned why the front office didn’t lock him up the second last season ended. He brings vertical pop, rim protection and relentless downhill energy. And it’s not like he cost much.

He’s athletic Kevon Looney. There’s no higher compliment you can receive in this space.

But all’s well that ends well, and Bassey is standing out as the Warriors’ top center in recent games.

Miami had zero answers for any Warrior on Thursday. After their early game adrenaline wore off and Draymond Green started locking down the paint, the Heat looked sluggish and disjointed, caught in a spacing nightmare between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo that made their offense look like a bad ’90s flashback.

Golden State exposed them because Golden State actually has 10-plus guys who know who they are and how they can contribute to winning. The Heat can’t find one working combination. The Warriors have half a dozen.

Tests are looming. A matchup against Houston next week will show whether this depth translates against the league’s elite.

Until then, the reality is simple: Steph is still the engine, but he’s no longer pushing the car uphill by himself. There’s a long way to go yet, but there are reasons to believe that these surging Warriors are for real.