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Warriors can live with Game 4 loss after Stephen Curry survives terrifying fall

HOUSTON – One by one, these Golden State powerbrokers left courtside seats and started a solemn walk through the concrete corridors of the Toyota Center. Soon, Joe Lacob gathered speed, pushing faster and faster. Behind him, his Warriors co-owner, Peter Gruber, simply started to run. Steph Curry had gone down hard, been hustled into the locker room and suddenly everything about this championship chase hung in the air – hung the way that the NBA's Most Valuable Player had in those terrifying moments before crashing down onto his head.

The Warriors had come for a Western Conference coronation on Monday night, and now Curry lay flat on the floor, face down. He had flipped over a Houston Rocket, lost his balance and his bearings, and slammed into the court. Dazed, Curry had been unsure of how badly he had hurt himself. He made a surreal, sluggish walk to undergo the NBA's concussion protocol. Every step of the way, a part of Curry wondered whether they'd let him back onto the floor again.

"When you have falls like that, you don't really know what's going to happen in the next 15-20 minutes, how you're going to feel," Curry said. "I was still … in shock."

In the end, the Warriors could live with the consequences of a 128-115 loss in Game 4, live with the genius of James Harden's 45 points, nine rebounds and five assists. They could live with the chance to close out Houston on Wednesday night at Oracle Arena, where a raucous Warriors fandom will have waited nearly 40 years for the chance to celebrate a berth in the NBA Finals. They can live with it all, because of these six words of truth out of Curry: "It could've been a lot worse."

Stephen Curry fell over Trevor Ariza before crashing to the court. (Getty Images)
Stephen Curry fell over Trevor Ariza before crashing to the court. (Getty Images)

For 45 minutes – through the end of the second quarter, halftime and into the third quarter – the Warriors doctors and trainers examined Curry. The NBA has a concussion protocol, a battery of tests that must be administrated and aced before a player can be cleared for a return. Had there been a concussion, Curry would've been sidelined until he shed those symptoms – and who knows how long that could've extended?

His father, Dell, joined the Golden State owners and general manager Bob Myers in the locker room. Dell kept texting his wife in the stands, offering Steph's mother, wife and mother-in-law updates on his son's condition. Hours earlier, the Curry family was a portrait of ease at a table inside the restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel. They were sitting with Kris Stone, the Under Armour shoe executive, and waiting until it was time for the short walk to the Toyota Center. Curry's wife is pregnant, the shoe executive has to offer a blockbuster new endorsement deal sooner than later, and basketball's hottest star is five victories away from claiming an MVP and an NBA championship in the same season.

Now, the Warriors were getting crushed and Steph Curry became even more anxious as they cut a 25-point deficit within 10 points. As the Warriors poured into the halftime locker room, Curry had been glancing at the television set, trying to balance the cognitive testing with stolen glances on the TV screen.

As Draymond Green turned the corner and started into the locker room where Curry awaited his teammates, Green screamed: "Keep fighting back, fellas, I promise you they're going to [bleeping] crack."

As the Warriors returned for the third quarter, Curry stayed back in the locker room. Eventually, he passed the tests. No concussion, the doctors insisted. He rode the stationary bike, trying to get his heart rate elevated again. Soon, Curry sprinted in the hallway. Up and back, up and back again. He felt out of sorts, lost his rhythm and re-greeted the game with a jumper that missed everything.

After the game, Myers shared a moment of relief with Curry in the locker room. Before Curry departed for his postgame news conference, Myers told him, "When they ask you about the air ball, say, 'What air ball?'

Curry looked dazed as he walked off the court. (Getty Images)
Curry looked dazed as he walked off the court. (Getty Images)

Yes, it could've been so much worse. The Warriors didn't need to have Curry at the mercy of that concussion protocol, lost deeper into the series if he were still experiencing symptoms.

"It was the scariest one," Curry confessed later, comparing the tumble to a basketball career full of them. "I've had worse symptoms from getting hit in the head, but that was the worst one because you're in the air for a long time – and not knowing how you're going to hit the floor.

"[You just] know that is going to happen. It's inevitable, but you're up there trying to brace yourself."

The Rockets never did collapse the way Green had predicted to his teammates. Houston's survival instincts kicked into this series and saved its season once again. If the Rockets weren't fired up late Monday night for a Game 5 in Oakland, they were after the emergence of an internal Golden State public-relations memo that explained where the Warriors would land on Tuesday afternoon "following their 4-0 series sweep," and how Green would be made available for the assembled media.

It was an honest mistake: The Warriors were preparing for the possibility they would win Game 4, and that memo merely served to remind a young PR staffer that you cannot let those things fall out of a folder and into opponents' hands. It wasn't until postgame on Monday night that some Rockets personnel stumbled onto those drafts of the release.

In the end, the Warriors would live with it all – the bad defense, the Game 4 loss, the embarrassing press release. They'll live with it all, because those six words out of the NBA's MVP will be lingering in a delirious Oracle Arena on Wednesday night: It could've been a lot worse.