Warriors debut in the house that they — and Stephen Curry — built

One month after the venue opened, the Warriors popped the top on Chase Center as a basketball arena.

But the most important event Saturday night wasn’t the pretend game between the Lakers and the Warriors. No, the really big moment came more than an hour before the exhibition contest tipped off.

That was when Stephen Curry took his first attempt at what may be the new version of his famous post-warm-up tunnel shot.

The tunnel to the Warriors’ new state-of-the-art locker room angles out of the corner of the court, not on a perpendicular line like it was at Oracle. So the new version is a different, more difficult shot.

But what’s the same is that Curtis Jones, the usher who has passed Curry the ball for years, is still in place to make his famous assists. Jones, who wasn’t sure back in June whether he would make the trek from Oakland, is working at Chase.

That’s a great thing. Like Jones, there were many familiar faces in the shiny new environment, making it feel a little more comfortable right from the start.

After his pregame warm-up, Curry stopped in the tunnel. Jones grabbed the ball and passed it to the superstar. Curry launched it, trying for a shot that needed to go up and over the stanchion, the shot clock and the backboard in order to swish through the basket.

He almost made it.

So, is that up and over the new shot?

“Ain’t figured it out yet,” Curry said with a shrug. “There’s too much going on.”

There was a lot going on Saturday night, and very little had to do with the exaggerated scrimmage between the Lakers and Warriors. Though basketball is ostensibly the building’s raison d’etre.

“I’m so excited,” team President Rick Welts said, adding that even though Chase has been hosting concerts for more than a month, “we’ve got...