Rockets vs. Warriors: Game 5 Score and Twitter Reaction from 2015 NBA Playoffs

Dwight Howard brought his A-game. James Harden, not so much. In the end, it didn't really matter what the Houston Rockets stars were doing. Stephen Curry had no interest in going back to Houston.

Curry scored 25 points and Klay Thompson added 20 as the Golden State Warriors overcame a rough-shooting first half to earn a 104-90 win over the Rockets in Wednesday's Game 5 to win the Western Conference championship.

The Warriors move on to the NBA Finals to play the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are looking for their first Larry O'Brien Trophy. Golden State will be making its first Finals appearance since 1975—seven years before anyone on the roster was born and just months before head coach Steve Kerr's 10th birthday.

Draymond Green spoke about the team's achievement after the game, via Bleacher Report's Uninterrupted:

The years since have seen the franchise navigate plenty of ups and downs, mostly the latter. When Curry arrived, the franchise was in such tatters that his agent and father tried to steer Golden State away from drafting him, per Yahoo Sports' Marc J. Spears. National columnists were calling the organization a "dysfunctional mess" and wondering if Curry could succeed in such an environment. 

That chatter never quite left the organization. Not when Curry battled through career-threatening ankle injuries. Not when the team traded popular guard Monta Ellis for seemingly broken-down center Andrew Bogut. And especially not last summer, when internal turmoil caused the Warriors to fire Mark Jackson and install a rookie coach in Kerr on the bench.

Now the dysfunctional mess is the NBA's definition of aesthetic beauty.

Leading the charge has been Golden State's Splash Brothers, who faced their fair share of adversity in Game 5. Curry's shot never looked quite right all night. His 25 points came on 7-of-21 shooting, including a surprising 3-of-11 clip from three-point range. His confidence, so often the hallmark of his game, was so shaken that he actively passed up open shots at times in the second half.

Thompson's shot had no flaws. He was the Warriors' best player for most of the night, scoring 13 of his points in a brilliant second quarter that helped them atone for a mistake-filled first 12 minutes. It was instead foul trouble that kept pushing Thompson to the bench. He drew his third not long before halftime and added a fourth and fifth less than three minutes into the second half.

To make matters worse, Thompson re-entered the game in the fourth quarter only to leave again after taking a Trevor Ariza knee to the ear. After being evaluated in the locker room, Thompson reappeared on the bench with a little over three minutes remaining but did not return.

With Thompson gone, Harrison Barnes in foul trouble and Andrew Bogut possibly dealing with a hand injury, per Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle, Kerr was forced into making difficult rotational calls—a rarity during his inaugural campaign.

Curry and Green were left on the floor for all 12 minutes of the third, propping up a reserve-heavy unit filled with non-shooters who hot-potatoed the ball around the perimeter. Festus Ezeli more than doubled his series average in minutes. Leandro Barbosa and Shaun Livingston found themselves sharing a floor.

Come crunch time, you could have excused the Warriors for being tired. For being frustrated. For realizing how much had gone wrong and living to fight another day. 

Instead, Golden State ramped up the pressure and put the Rockets away for good.

Barnes scored 13 of his 24 points, Ezeli added energy in the middle with Bogut on the bench and the Warriors kept a cool head as Houston had some problems (sorry).

Howard, whose play all postseason has gone underrated, had 18 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks. He consistently won the physical battle inside against Golden State's bigs, looking spry enough to bring back memories of his Orlando days. For all of the rightful gripes about his decision-making—Howard drew his seventh technical foul of these playoffs in the first half, which would have resulted in a Game 6 suspension unless the league rescinded the foul—he remains a matchup nightmare.

Harden had 14 points in what might have been a 48-minute affirmation of the Based God Curse. The MVP runner-up turned the ball over a postseason-record 13 times, 2-of-11 from the field and was a complete non-factor as Golden State salted the game away in the fourth. 

With the shots not falling from distance, one could argue Game 5 was a testament to the Warriors' defensive prowess. Houston shot 35.1 percent from the floor and made just five three-point attempts. Postseason hero Josh Smith turned back into a pumpkin on a 3-of-14 night, Terrence Jones offered nothing off the bench and even Howard fell apart mentally down the stretch. 

If it weren't for the Rockets' 44 trips to the free-throw line, things could have gotten a whole lot uglier.

That said, Houston walks away from the 2014-15 season with a resume far more impressive than anyone could have imagined. After losing out on Chris Bosh in free agency and allowing Chandler Parsons to sign with Dallas, a Western Conference Finals appearance looked like a pipe dream. Some thought the Rockets would be lucky to even make the playoffs. Instead, Daryl Morey built the West's second-best team around others' spare parts and maintained his desired flexibility.

"

Rockets had an awesome season. No.2 in the West without Dwight for most of it? Lost to the best team in the league in the WCF? Great year

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) May 28, 2015"

As for the Warriors, their journey is far from over. 

“It’s easy for us to stay hungry because none of us have really experienced this before or accomplished really anything,” Curry told reporters before Game 4. 

Up next is a Cleveland team that looks entirely beatable on paper. The Cavaliers' Big Three is an injury-riddled mess, with Kevin Love out for the season, Kyrie Irving bouncing around on one leg and LeBron James in the midst of a brutal shooting slump. 

In fact, take away the words "LeBron" and "James," and this looks like a laughably lopsided affair. On one side is a Warriors team that won 67 regular-season games, had one of the best point differentials in league history and rampaged its way through a difficult Western Conference. On the other, there's a Cleveland team with a shaky supporting cast that's been carried through a weak East by the best player in the world.

Wednesday's celebration should merely be the means to ending a 40-year title drought in the Bay Area. But if this Warriors core has taught us anything, it's to be wary of the underdog. You never know when the mess will get its act together.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter