Barber: Stephen Curry gets tough, and Warriors down Rockets 126-85

OAKLAND - He juked around James Harden, his tormenter of the previous two games and the presumptive MVP of the league. He drove to the basket, where he was challenged by Luc Mbah a Moute, an opponent who has at least 5 inches and 40 pounds on him. He laid the ball improbably high off the glass. It went in, and Stephen Curry responded in a most un-Curry-like way. He turned to the crowd behind the south basket at Oracle Arena and roared, “This is my (bleeping) house!”

My word. Where's my fainting couch?

The choir boy had been caught writing graffiti on the church wall. And nothing could have more accurately represented Curry's emergence in this Western Conference championship series.

“I blacked out,” Curry said after the Warriors' decisive 126-85 win against the Houston Rockets on Sunday, explaining the blue outburst. Curry continued, more earnest now: “A lot of is talking to myself. You've got to be your biggest fan sometimes and find whatever it is to keep you going.”

Curry is a two-time NBA most valuable player and, along with LeBron James, one of the two biggest basketball stars on the planet. But there are times when even a beloved superstar has to find something to keep himself going. Sunday was one of those nights for Curry.

This series has been one of the biggest challenges of his career, or at least the All-Star portion of his career. The Rockets' primary offensive tactic has been to isolate Harden, and to a lesser extent point guard Chris Paul, on Curry, the most vulnerable of the Warriors' four starters on defense. At the other end of the court, Houston has worked hard to neutralize Curry's outside shot and force drives to the basket.

For two games, and for the first half of Game 3, the strategy was sound. Curry looked frustrated, and occasionally perplexed. He looked small. I mean, he is small by the standards of the NBA. But against Houston, Curry seemed to be shrinking before our eyes.

The Rockets were exploiting him - directly exploiting one of the five best players in the league. And it was keeping them in the series.

What turned the tide, and might lead directly to Houston's downfall, was not Curry's shot. That was always destined to return. What defines Curry in this series is the trait that's so frequently obscured by his 28-foot baskets, his dizzying handles and his neighbor-kid smile: the toughness.

Curry seems like a genuinely nice person. He's certainly a good teammate, and a generous giver of his time. When the jersey goes on, though, he is a cutthroat. And he can take a punch.

“That's something that's kind of been the key to his career, his mental toughness,” teammate Draymond Green said. “He didn't come in with everyone saying Steph Curry would be who he is today. Everybody questioned who he would be. That's one of his strengths, for sure.”

This week was a trial for Curry. He had looked razor-sharp in the previous series against the Pelicans, after returning from a knee injury that kept him in street clothes for 16 games. The Rockets were embarrassing him, though. Harden and Paul were abusing Curry on the defensive end, and it was affecting his shooting, too.

What was wrong with Stephen Curry? Was he still hurt? Was his confidence shot? Had he been revealed as a poor defender?

Curry never snapped, but you know he was hearing the doubts, and you know it burned inside of him like an ulcer.

“That is what makes, I think, a great player and person in general - just being able to deal with failure, frustration, whatever it is, not living up to your own expectations,” Curry said after Game 3. “Not letting yourself get defeated. There are plenty of opportunities to do that when there are 800 cameras in your face, and questions about why are you not shooting this, why did you play so bad in Game 2, whatever it is.”

The truth is, the Rockets had not defeated Curry in those games in Houston. They had pushed him around, for sure, had frustrated him with their ardent attention. But Curry hadn't given in.

The Rockets, who have good perimeter defenders, denied him clean outside shots. So time and again, Curry drove to the basket. He has become a brilliant finisher around the rim, and he was doing it well against Houston, even while his 3-pointers were clanging.

Even on defense, Curry was game. Harden might be the best one-on-one player in the NBA, which is why the Rockets run so much isolation offense. Few players can adequately defend him. Curry certainly can't. But he tried like crazy to keep up, and never attempted to deflect blame when he failed.

Game 3 didn't start out great for him, either. The Warriors' defense, like the Rockets', is built on switching. When the other team sets a screen against one of your defenders, you are supposed to switch assignments. When you do it well, as the Warriors usually do, it looks seamless. Against the Rockets, the seams were exposed.

Several times in the first few minutes of Game 3, the man being guarded by Curry (frequently Trevor Ariza) screened the man guarding Harden (frequently Andre Iguodala). Instead of a quick switch, Curry stepped toward a halfhearted double-team on Harden, then found himself chasing the screener. That's how Ariza wound up with consecutive baskets in less than a minute.

Curry looked more uncertain, and less capable, than ever. But then something clicked for him. He stopped getting caught in-between, and re-focused on staying in front of Harden. And his defense got tighter. Harden would wind up with a modest 20 points, hit just a pair of 3-pointers and shot only five free throws. It was a victory for Curry on the defensive end.

The four second-half 3-pointers may have been the dam bursting, but those other things were the small chinks in the concrete that made it possible.

“The main thing is just being aggressive,” said Shaun Livingston, Curry's backup. “Not falling back into - maybe not ‘hiding,' I don't think that's the right word - but just taking the challenge. He took the challenge tonight, and we'll need him to do that the rest of the series.”

I don't think the Rockets are done. They're a legitimate threat to the Warriors, and their coach, Mike D'Antoni, has matched Kerr pawn for pawn this series. But the Warriors have to be feeling pretty good about taking a 2-1 lead into another game at Oracle Arena on Tuesday.

This is, after all, Stephen Curry's bleeping house.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.