Golden State Warriors Need Over-the-Top Confidence More Than Ever

Stephen Curry returned to play Game 4 against the Houston Rockets Sunday, but the restoration of order that was supposed to accompany him never showed up.

Fortunately, the Golden State Warriors' fiery competitive edge and swaggering bravado arrived in time to salt away a 121-94 blowout win.

After two games off to rest a sore right ankle, Curry looked like himself in the early going. He was aggressive from long range, firing up seven triples in the first half and registering his first made bucket on an inside-out fast break finish, complete with a hard landing on that troublesome right foot.

The harder landing came at the end of that first half, when Curry slipped on a wet spot at the second-quarter buzzer and went into an awkward splits, banging the inside of his right knee on the hardwood.

After limping to the locker room, Curry returned to the floor near the end of halftime, but didn't start the third quarter. With Shaun Livingston in his place, Curry again retired to the bowels of the Toyota Center, accompanied by uncertainty and the renewed angst of a Warriors fanbase.

After 18 minutes, his comeback was over. A drop of sweat in the wrong spot on the floor did the MVP in, and Curry had to absorb the physical pain of his sprained knee along with the cosmic inequity of it all.

It was a troubling scene, per Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group:

And Draymond Green relayed the emotional weight of the moment in an interview with ESPN Radio, via Royce Young of ESPN.com:

According to Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group, Curry will undergo an MRI (his second of the postseason) Monday.

What happened in that second half took a backseat to Curry's health, and nothing will matter to the Warriors more than his fitness going forward. Still, there were encouraging elements to Golden State's sans-Steph performance.

The Dubs got defiant. And they're very, very good when that happens.

Green whipped himself into a frenzy, drilling three triples and scoring 13 points in an inspired third-quarter burst. Each made trey came complete with throaty, rafter-shaking bellows. Green, who believed he'd cost the Warriors Game 3, made amends with 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists on 7-of-12 shooting.

CSNBayArea.com's Monte Poole put it simply:

Klay Thompson joined Green, hitting four threes and scoring a dozen of his game-high 23 points in that pivotal third quarter. He assumed the alpha scoring mantle with Curry out, and a forgetful Rockets defense helped him break loose often enough to get into a terrifying rhythm. His confidence, that of a true gunner, was cooler than Green's scalding brand. But it was no less important.

Golden State set an NBA playoff record with 21 made three-pointers. Thompson stated after the game, per ESPN.com, "I was trying to raise our level of intensity. When you play with emotion and play for your teammates, you can really get going. If we have that same emotion and intensity on Wednesday, we should be successful."

The badly needed step-up showings from Thompson and Green offer the only silver linings for Golden State. In isolation, they won the Warriors a playoff game. In broader terms, they give the Dubs some assurance that things won't go sideways if Curry sits out the duration of the series. Even if Houston's total collapse suggests that'll only be one more game, Thompson and Green played well enough to remove any urgency to get Curry back.

The obligatory state of the series is this: The Rockets are done, and the Warriors will close this thing out at home Wednesday. After all, the Rockets have shown they struggle to adjust when adversity hits. 

"We should have played with the same energy that we did in the first half," Dwight Howard said, per ESPN.com. "When plays didn't go our way, we got upset and got a little frustrated."

Once this series comes to a close, Golden State must hope for as long of a series as possible between the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trail Blazers. Because remember: Curry's new sprained knee exists in conjunction with the ankle injury he suffered in Game 1. He never claimed to be pain free before Sunday's game, and at the risk of getting too far into the field of medical experts, two injuries are worse than one.

He'll need as much time as possible to rest up before the second round.

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

For as long as Curry's out, the Warriors will have to rely on the attitude and anger that pushed them in that game-changing third quarter. Green will have to continue stomping on the line between chaos and high-intensity effectiveness. Thompson will have to sustain his Navy SEAL sniper's soundless assault.

Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli—all of them must perform like they cannot be beaten...even if, without Curry, they absolutely can be.

That's a difficult mindset to maintain. But for the Warriors, it's one they practiced all season.

So much of what made Golden State great this year was its belief in itself. The Warriors coasted through weeks of the schedule at a time, rarely losing because they knew they could call on a five-minute rampage to blow opponents apart.

Call it calculated complacency.

The difference now is that Curry may not be there to lead those self-assured charges. And he was often a rampage unto himself.

Any team with a realistic understanding of its limitations would be questioning its chances of survival without its best player. But in winning 73 games, the Warriors proved this year that they aren't all that open to the idea of having any limitations at all.

Nothing limits Golden State more than losing Curry. So now we'll see just how far this team's outsized confidence can carry it.

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