SAN FRANCISCO - Let's skip the obvious and refuse to describe the performance as lights out, because literally at Candlestick Park on Monday night, they did go out - twice - in a power outage.

Let's not skip the obvious: The San Francisco 49ers are a very good football team, and they proved it by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers, another very good football team, 20-3.

What an evening, bizarre, confounding, stitched with long delays because of transformer failure that at first kept the game from starting for 20 minutes and then, after everything seemed corrected, halted it for another 16 minutes early in the second quarter.

What an evening, Candlestick Park, sold out, 69,732, filled seemingly with as many Steelers fans, with their omnipresent Terrible Towels, as Niners partisans, everyone bundled against a Bay Area chill that made winter more than simply a time on the calendar.

The Niners, now 11-3 and unless they stumble headed for a first-round playoff bye, did what efficient, effective teams do. They played brilliant defense - setting an NFL record of 14 straight games not allowing a rushing touchdown - and protected the ball.

"A great team win,'' rookie coach Jim Harbaugh called the victory. "This team really has become a team."

A team that, even though last in the league in scoring touchdowns in the red zone, finds ways to get the job done. Monday night one of those ways was to grab three interceptions and one fumble by the Steelers.

"I think we need to acknowledge that was 49er football tonight,'' said Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. "We played the game on their terms.

"They created turnovers, they got turnovers, they got us with a few concept plays. They have a reputation for getting the other team to make big turnovers, and they confirmed it tonight."

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger also confirmed that he is as tough as anyone in the sport. Although a sore left ankle kept him from moving - and might have kept others on the bench - Roethlisberger played to the end, probably well after he should have come out, the game decided.

"He was healthy enough to play,'' said Tomlin. "We always like what Ben provides us, not only from his quality of play but his leadership. We appreciate his efforts."

But on the first offensive series of the game, with the Steelers having moved from their own 30 to the Niners 19, Roethlisberger tried to connect with Mike Wallace at the goal line. Carlos Rogers dove and snatched the ball seemingly from Wallace's hands and returned the interception to the San Francisco 27. Right there, with only 3 1/2 minutes gone, the game turned.

"Phenomenal,'' said Harbaugh of Rogers.

Compliments were flying from the man who, having moved over from his miracle work at Stanford, has taken a Niners team that hadn't been a winner the previous eight seasons. The man who restored the pride in a franchise that won five Super Bowls and earned the label "Team of the '80s"

When someone wondered what Harbaugh had learned from a game when his team didn't flinch or blink, didn't care if it sat in a darkened locker room or couldn't get much out of the first half other than two field goals, he had a ready answer.

"I've known this team for a long time now,'' he insisted. "We've practiced together, learned together, fought together. We've been humble and proud. A lot of credit goes to the offensive line."

The same line that gave up nine sacks Thanksgiving night to the Baltimore Ravens. The same line that was mystified by the Arizona Cardinals' blitzing eight days earlier and allowed five sacks.

"I don't believe we gave up a sack this time,'' said Harbaugh, who was absolutely right.

For all the grief quarterback Alex Smith took against the Ravens and Cards, he gave enough on this night, completing 18 of 31 for 187 yards a touchdown.

"A tremendous job,'' said Harbaugh of Smith, who in his seventh season finally looks like a man who deserved to be the No. 1 pick in the draft, which he was in 2005. "He was just on the money all night long."

Harbaugh is the essence of control, of making sure his players are focused. He invented a fictional character, Freddie P. Soft, to bring up if he believes they are getting even a wee bit lazy in their tasks. So you almost knew what he would say when asked what his team had done during the waiting period while power was restored before the game.

"What was it like in the locker room?" was the question.

"It was dark,'' was Harbaugh's answer, evoking laughter. "Everybody just kind of rolled with it. Just updated them on what was going on. There was an ‘I'll let you know in five or 10 minutes.' Then we knew there was a transformer out, etc. It was lighthearted."

Winners don't worry about the extraneous things.