Lowell Cohn: Expect Warriors to set things right in Game 4

HOUSTON

Stephen Curry will play in Game 4 against the Houston Rockets unless he responds badly to his Saturday workout. The Warriors officially list him as “probable.”

On Saturday, Curry spoke about the offending right foot. “For me, the only thing I needed to be sure about is the stability of it. When I need to call on a certain move or a certain pivot or plant, change of direction, change of speeds, that my ankle will be underneath me. And I felt I’m at that point. I can deal with a little bit of pain and discomfort. It’s not pain. It’s soreness. It’s kind of to be expected. It’s stable, no swelling, so I can do everything I need to do.”

That’s the news part of this column, newshounds and sports fans.

What, you thought he wouldn’t play?

Now for a geography primer. Think of the Toyota Center, the Rockets’ arena. You’ve never been to it? No problem. It’s a basketball building much like Oracle. But here’s the curious thing. The Rockets’ practice court is at street level, on a main street. It’s like an anteroom to the arena. If you visualize your high school basketball court, that’s what the Rockets use. Surprisingly rinky-dink. The gym smells of sweat-soaked socks, not a bad smell.

While the Rockets were shooting around in their dinky gym on Saturday morning, a heavyset man lingered on the side - looked like a retired linebacker. Stared at the court. James Harden’s bodyguard. At practice. A local writer told me the bodyguard attends all Rockets home games and sits one row behind the bench.

During timeouts, he walks onto the court and guards. This writer told me the bodyguard has more court time than some players.

Dwight Howard also has a bodyguard, but he stays more in the shadows. The Warriors have a security service employed by the team. Different from personal bodyguards.

Memo to self: Must hire bodyguard.

While the bodyguard looked on, Rockets interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff spoke to the media.

Gave a glimpse of how he’ll use Harden. Bickerstaff didn’t say how he’ll use the bodyguard, although the bodyguard could give Curry a forceful noogie during a timeout.

“We’ll put him (Harden) in different places,” Bickerstaff said, “move him around, make them have to find him a little bit more instead of just knowing he’s staying at the top of the floor and they can crowd him.”

Then Bickerstaff got into Curry, whom he seems to love. What coach doesn’t love Stephen Curry? “The spacing is completely different when he’s on the floor,” Bickerstaff said. “He’s a guy you literally have to pick up at the jump circle. That opens up the floor for guys to drive. And then you have to account for his movement. He’s one of the best in the league at moving without the basketball. So, now they’ve got a two-sided offense where (Klay) Thompson’s on one side and he’s on the other side.

“The only way to guard him is to be physical. If you let him play freestyle basketball with no contact, you see what he can do. You have to put your hands on him. You have to be physical with him.”

Got that?

Now, for more Toyota Center geography.

While the Rockets were shooting in their cozy room, the Warriors were practicing one floor below in the big wide arena surrounded by all those seats. An NBA mansion. Me, I thought the Rockets would prefer the big room.

After practice, Steve Kerr talked mostly Curry, as you’d expect. “Steph doesn’t take too long to get his rhythm back,” Kerr said.

“We may have to alter the substitution pattern to get him out a little earlier depending on his wind.”

OK, Kerr will be prudent. Now, listen to this. It’s on the theme of never losing back-to-back games this season - if the Warriors lose Game 4, it’s a dreaded back-to-back.

“That’s something we’re very proud of,” Kerr said. “Generally, when we’ve lost, we’ve bounced back really well and played not only hard but intelligently. I think we need to play more intelligently than we did in Game 3, and I think we will.”

Here’s Curry on a similar subject - the bad vibe of losing: “We just don’t like the feeling and you don’t want to have that continue. We get angry and remember the details and the energy we need to come back and correct what we did wrong. It’s a kind of stubborn confidence that you lose a game and it’s not supposed to happen again.”

Think about the horror-of-losing theme so central to the Warriors’ thinking. When they lose, they don’t merely lose a game. Something unnatural happened in the world. They feel morally offended. They want to set things right against the Rockets. I say they will.

I’m thinking about the personalities of these two teams - their deep-down personalities. And I’m saying the Warriors lost Game 3 because Curry didn’t play, and Draymond Green and Klay Thompson barely played - in the sense of playing well.

The Rockets won the only game they should have won - could have won. Came home to all that Houston fan hysteria.

Buoyed by the euphoria of that good feeling, they played great for a half. Couldn’t even sustain it for an entire game. Actually gave up a 17-point lead and let the Warriors take a one-point lead with 10 seconds left. Almost a full-on choke.

In the second half, the Rockets reverted to selfish mode - their default mode - and Howard reverted to disappearing. Does he own the Cloak of Invisibility? In the second half, they played like a dead dog. Nothing against dogs. I love dogs. I’m talking about dead dogs. The Warriors will win Game 4, and then close out these guys in Oakland.

Call it a victory of Right Basketball over Wrong Basketball.

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@pressdemo?crat.com.