Lowell Cohn: Warriors felt Stephen Curry's absence in Game 3 loss to Rockets

HOUSTON - To Curry or not to Curry? - that is the question.

The question is relevant because Houston beat the Warriors 97-96 in Game 3 of their playoff series. And the Rockets won because Stephen Curry didn't play. Be honest. He sat in the locker room watching on TV.

To Curry or not to Curry is the biggest question this Warriors organization ever has faced. And it faces it now.

It almost didn't come to that, the Warriors nearly escaping the dilemma.

The Rockets, a group of underachievers like you can't believe, blew a 17-point lead and squeaked out a one-point win, wheezing across the finish line.

If a few things went the Warriors way, they would have won. And could rest Curry in Game 4.

No questions asked. It would be obvious they don't need Curry to beat these Rockets. Now, that's not so clear.

The loss was so unusual. As if gravity stopped working. We expect the Warriors to keep winning games. Play a game. Win a game. They won 73. Remember?

It sure went their way in the first two games. The Rockets seemed to arrive in Oakland sedated. Played like the dead. It looked certain the Warriors would beat them in the Toyota Center, even without Curry. That's how easy things are for them.

But the Warriors were ragged, and the Rockets had something to do with that. Early in the game, Festus Ezeli missed a dunk and, on the next play, Dwight Howard, who usually loafs and smiles about it, stuffed Ezeli's dunk. A metaphor for the Warriors in the first half.

Listen to what Houston coach J.B. Bickerstaff said before the game. He poured out his heart, talked about the need for his players to play hard and nasty.

“That's the constant battle when you try to impose that mentality, understanding the importance of it,” he almost pled.

“You can't win at this level if you don't play that way. I can't put a number on how many small battles there are going to be tonight whether it's a box-out battle, whether it's defending a guy coming off a screen, whether it's getting over a screen in a pick-and-roll.

“There's going to be a ton of those small battles. The team that's going to win this game, the team that's going to win this series is the team that's going to win the majority of those small battles. At some point, skill goes out the door and it's those nasty things, dirty-work-type things that you have to do. And if you do more of them than your opponent, you've got to like your chances of winning the ballgame.”

Those words were rational, not as weird as his comments from the day before when he seemed to advocate a gang war. He went on, his words almost poetic.

“The intensity has to be greater. The desire to do things that are difficult has to be higher. The ball goes up on the glass, there can't be an excuse why we didn't go and get it. There's a loose ball on the floor, there can't be an excuse why we didn't go get it. There are two guys going for a ball, we've got to come up with it.

“You've got to be willing to be more gritty than your opponent. You've got to go home with some floor burns and some bruises on your hips. Champions do those things. You watch Golden State. They do those things.”

The Rockets, of all people, did those things. It's like Bickerstiff filled his players with the force of his will.

And there was something else. Curry didn't play. Big minus. The Warriors next-best players, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, barely played, either. Two more big minuses. Green scored nine points - one in the first half. He also chipped in with seven turnovers. He ended the game on an inbounds play as time ran out and the ball rolled away from him. Another metaphor.

Thompson? He took seven 3-point shots. Made zero. Hard to win without your three best players. But the Warriors almost won, anyway.

After the game, Andrew Bogut sat at his locker, his legs in an ice bucket, his face sober. “To play the way we played - we played only one good half - and obviously without our 3-point scorer is a decent sign. We still feel we could have won the game.”

What was the mood in the locker room?

“It's somber,” Bogut said. “We don't like losing. Guys are going to be pretty pissed off tonight. That's a good thing. We have two days before we play again. Usually, when we lose a game like this we back up very well the next time.

“We're not silly. We know we're not going to sweep out winning the playoffs. We've been down 2-1 before (in 2015) and came back to win twice. There are guys in this room who have a lot of pride.”

And that brings the discussion back to Curry.

“If Steph's hurt, he's not going to play,” Steve Kerr said after the game. Before the game, he had elaborated on the Curry Question, explained why Curry would be out for Game 3, the eventual losing game:

“We talked to him after shootaround. He felt pretty good. He wanted to play. But, ultimately, we didn't feel comfortable after four straight days of inactivity, throwing him into the middle of a playoff game not knowing how the ankle would respond. We felt a lot more comfortable putting him through a three-on-three (Friday), probably a five-on-five on Saturday and really seeing if he's OK.

“Wasn't worth the risk. Hopefully he'll be ready to go for Game 4.”

Which leads to the deep question that will reverberate until Sunday. To Curry or not to Curry?

I say they Curry.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.