HOUSTON — Stephen Curry limped in the locker room after the win, his sprained right knee wrapped, his smile intact.
The Warriors’ 121-94 rout of the Houston Rockets provided some respite for the reigning MVP after he tried, yet couldn’t return for the second half of Game 4 on Sunday.
While the Warriors took a 3-1 lead in the first-round series, their defense of the NBA championship is uncertain, with Curry scheduled to undergo an MRI exam Monday.
Curry appeared to be crying in the moment he was told he would not be able to return for the game, burying his head in his yellow shirt and bent over at the waist while Steve Kerr and Draymond Green consoled him on the sideline.
“We both just patted him on the back,” the Warriors coach said. “There wasn’t much to say.
“It was just the compassion of knowing that he couldn’t get out there.”
Curry slipped on a wet spot while defending Trevor Ariza on the final play of the first half, lost his footing with his left leg and then grabbed his other knee after it buckled.
He hobbled off the court for halftime and later jogged back onto it in hopes he would be able to return. He briefly warmed up and said he could play before a team doctor, team trainer and Kerr intervened.
Kerr asked Curry if he was sure and reminded his star player to be honest.
“He just put his head down, and he knew it was not a wise thing to do to go out there,” Kerr said.
The knee wasn’t right.
“I just feel awful for him,” Kerr said. “Hopefully he’s going to be OK before too long. We don’t know. But I just feel so bad for him.”
With the game tied at 56, the Warriors went on without Curry and proceeded to punish the Rockets.
The Warriors finished the game with a playoff-record 21 3-pointers and outscored the Rockets by 21 points in the third quarter.
Green hit his first three 3-point attempts of the quarter, and after Green scored eight straight Warriors points, Klay Thompson hit back-to-back 3-pointers and finished with four shots from beyond the arc in the quarter.
Green said he was “feeling like complete crap” seeing that Curry was unable to play.
“The uncertainty of not knowing what’s going on … that brings you down,” Green said. “With that, we all know that we have to step our game up.”
Said Andrew Bogut: “We weren’t lighting a candle and holding hands … We had to refocus.”
Thompson scored a game-high 23 points, hitting seven 3-pointers one game after missing each of his seven attempts from beyond the arc.
“You could see the intent in their guys’ eyes,” Rockets coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “The moment where we needed to match that intensity, we didn’t do it.
“You go back and look at how many of the shots were created by us not doing little things that we needed to do. How many offensive rebounds they got for kickout 3s, how many opportunities in transition where we didn’t get matched up and they got open 3s.”
Andre Iguodala added 22 points on 9-for-11 shooting, coming through with 13 of those points in the second quarter after the Warriors fell behind by seven points.
Shaun Livingston, who started the second half in place of Curry, finished with nine points and nine assists.
Curry appeared rusty and was held to six points on 2-for-9 shooting, including 1-for-7 from 3-point range. It was his first game since the tweak of his right ankle eight days earlier in Game 1, and his much-anticipated return was spoiled by the knee injury.
The Warriors still roasted the Rockets.
“There’s a reason why those guys are champions,” Bickerstaff said. “It wasn’t just one guy that won the championship. They’ve got a bunch of guys who are willing to do whatever it takes to step up and help them win. They have guys who put some of their skills on the backburner because it’s better for the team. When it’s called upon, they can still go to it, and they did that tonight.”
The Rockets also lost their starting point guard, as Patrick Beverley exited in the second with a right leg strain and did not return.
“The same way that they did was the same thing we needed to do,” Bickerstaff said. “A guy goes down, we’ve got to step up for our teammates.”
Dwight Howard led Houston with 19 points and 15 rebounds.
James Harden added 18 points, but was held to 4-for-13 shooting.
“Terrible way, terrible way, terrible way to lose,” Harden said. “The third quarter, it was just a breakdown.”
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