HOUSTON -- Stephen Curry left his feet, and the next thing he knew, he was twisting helplessly in the air. Later, when it was all over -- the fall, the return to the floor and a mostly lopsided loss to the Houston Rockets -- one thing stayed with him.
Just how impossibly long he was in the air.
"You're in the air for a long time and not knowing how you're going to hit the floor," Curry said. "You know that it's going to happen -- it's inevitable -- but you're up there and just trying to brace yourself."
When he finally hit the floor with a thud, his right arm was bent awkwardly under his body. He was helpless; the remarkable Curry, in that moment, became simply another victim of gravity.
The force of the fall sent his head snapping back, striking the court. As Curry spun to a seated position, he reached for the back of his head with his right hand, and then rolled onto his stomach.
He stayed there for a long time, too.
"It's just a scary feeling, hearing all the trainers' voices saying, 'Take your time,' " Curry said.
This was Curry, the seemingly invincible MVP, sitting in the interview room recalling the details of what he called the scariest fall of his career. He was able to do so because, somehow, he came out of it with a head contusion and that's it. He was able to play nearly 18 minutes in the second half of a 128-115 loss to the Rockets on Monday night.
The Warriors' disappointment of having to return to Oakland with a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals instead of a sweep was tempered by the relief of seeing Curry come jogging back to the floor with 5:58 left in the third.
"Once you see him back out on the court," Harrison Barnes said, "you can breathe."
Earlier, outside the visiting locker room, Warriors owner Joe Lacob had emptied his lungs while placing his arm around PR man Raymond Ridder, who had just informed reporters that Curry was OK and questionable to return. In the uncertain, chaotic moments before that -- a 19-point deficit on the arena floor and their championship hopes stalled in the Rockets' weight room, where Curry was being examined by doctors -- a magical season was suddenly in peril.
Just like that.
"I just wanted to make sure he was OK," GM Bob Myers told CBSSports.com. "I was concerned for him."
After leaving the court surrounded by the team's medical staff, Curry was taken to the Rockets' weight room; the NBA's concussion protocol calls for a player to be examined in a "quiet, distraction-free environment."
Myers arrived moments later, walking briskly down the hallway and asking ushers and security guys where Curry was.
"Who you with?" one of the ushers said.
"I'm the GM," Myers replied.
The arena was still hushed, stunned by the sheer force of the Rockets' 45-point first-quarter outburst and the horrifying nature of Curry's fall. TV reporters huddled in a walkway leading from the court to the back hallways of the arena that connect the locker rooms.
Moments later, the weight-room door opened, and out walked Curry -- a white towel on his head, his gaze fixed downward. He looked dazed.
And scared.
"He seemed all right," Myers said. "I think he was kind of settling down; there's a lot of adrenaline in a situation like that. So I was just making sure he's OK, talking to him and listening to him and taking it slow."
Myers had been down this road before. A former agent, he had stood bedside in an Atlanta hospital room after client T.J. Ford had taken a terrible spill in a game against the Hawks in 2007.
"You just don't know," Myers said.
Myers walked with Curry to the visiting locker room, and Curry's father, Dell, entered with them, along with assistant GMs Kirk Lacob and Travis Schlenk.
"That was comforting, to kind of see a familiar face and let him know I was all right," Curry said.
While all this was happening, the Warriors had cut the Rockets' 25-point lead to seven. Golden State trailed by 10 at halftime, 69-59, and Curry said he was focused partly on getting himself right and partly on the TV.
"We still believed that we could win the game," Curry said.
The media crowd had grown outside the locker room, and finally reporters were sequestered in the work room next door. I made a U-turn and walked back toward the court. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps.
Curry's footsteps. I was about to get run over by the MVP.
Down-and-back he sprinted in the hallway, five times. Each time he stopped at the entrance to the Rockets' locker room, pivoted to his right and sprinted back the other way. He was good to go; doctors had cleared Curry to return, and he did just that. The Warriors trailed 78-69.
"It was strictly going to be, 'Are the doctors going to let him play? Is he OK to play?' " Kerr said. "He got the OK, so we put him in."
And when it was over, Curry hadn't quite been himself, and the Warriors didn't have their sweep. James Harden had 45 points, though, and the Rockets had some life.
And in the fourth quarter of one of the strangest NBA playoff games you'll experience, you could hear the thumping of thunder above the arena roof. Fans were urged to stay in their seats after the buzzer due to severe weather. With massive flooding in the area, some fans were still there more than two hours later; Dwight Howard was mingling with the crowd, high-fiving and signing autographs.
Also, someone had gained possession of a press release the Warriors had prepared detailing their travel and media plans in the event they had won the series Monday night. The memo, which was not circulated to the media, read, in part, "The Golden State Warriors will return to Oakland tomorrow (Tuesday, May 26) following their 4-0 sweep of the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals." Copies of the memo were left in some Rockets players' lockers.
And the aftermath of this strange basketball night didn't end there. Howard, assessed a flagrant-1 for elbowing Andrew Bogut in the face, would be automatically suspended for Game 5 if the league upgrades the flagrant to a penalty-2 on Tuesday. To which Bogut said, "I doubt that's going to happen, then."
As for Curry, the MVP was still standing Monday night, but the question remains: Will he be OK for Game 5? Will he be himself? He went through the league-mandated concussion protocol and passed the exertion, balance and cognitive tests. But some concussion symptoms don't present themselves right away. What will Tuesday bring? And Wednesday?
After a strange basketball night in the heart of Texas, it's all kind of twisting in the air for now.
