Where's Wardell?

Today, watching the game, whether in the comforts of your own home, with your friends in someone else's place, your favorite sports bar, or braving the home crowd by showing up in your royal and gold threads, involves a certain degree of checking piping hot takes from the internet. Beat writers covering the game supply thoughts as they come, and fans instantly participate in their narratives by supplying their own views and takes.

So, one particularly recurring one all over the internet was this, as the clock ran down to zeroes marking the end of the first half:

"What the hell happened to Stephen Curry?"

"Where's Wardell?"

The Warriors fan base, I feel, were asking out of real concern - Was he hurting? Why wasn't he getting open looks or escaping the defensive coverage being thrown at him? What's wrong with his shot? Why the heck hasn't he learned from the previous games that getting himself in foul trouble is going to BIG trouble, most especially in this pivotal game?

On the other hand, Rockets fans and those who have sworn to hate anything Curry or Golden State, we're waiting for this very moment, to add to the countless barbs that have been thrown Curry's way, who can't wait for the final buzzer to add to the increasing disrespect towards the only unanimously voted MVP.

"Anyone seen Steph?"

The dripping disdain/sarcasm/self-assuredness that he won't show up in this game, to those of us who believe our hero, was delicious.

Here we are, at halftime, the score mired in a tie, the outcome far from settled and the non-Warriors side of the Internet was ready to put Steph on a milk carton, and probably scouring Google for images of Steph's worst moments for new memes, and GIFs, warming the fire up for the eventual roasting, they non-believers of Strength in Numbers.

As I was chewing on delicious G-Fire wings from Fruitvale's Lucky Three Seven and licking my fingers clean of that delicious sauce so I can scroll through the muck of Instagram comments, Twitter feeds and game threads, I gathered my thoughts for the zingers that I want to dish out at the end of the game.

In my mind, this was a win. There's no way we're going to be tied in Houston with Steph riding the pine, saddled with three fouls, 0/5 from near or far. The bench, deemed shallow and unreliable, capitalized on their permission to shine. They came with energy, smart and well-timed plays. They were not perfect, but the job they did was phenomenal.

"Nice choke job Curry. Klay keeping y'all alive. See y'all in Game 7"

At the end of three, Warriors behind by five. Klay had cooled off a bit and the bench slipped a little defensively - the Rockets went on a mini-run before the end of the third and maybe the home crowd was feeling great given that the difference in the scoreboard was par for the course for the series margin of victory average. Steph had only 10 by then stringing together some key baskets to keep things too close to call and desperately increase that margin for error if they were to keep playing bodies from the bench to help close the game.

Then it happened - maybe someone pulled a trigger somewhere, or pressed a red button under a glass lid kept under lock and key.

Some call it going nuclear. Others describe it as going supernova.

Well, for me, it's simple: Steph happens.

You all know the rest of the story. When the game clock finally counted down to zeroes, there came an all too familiar sight - Paul and Harden, vanquished, headed to the exits. When you are eliminated four times by these Warriors in the last five years, the last thing you think about is the sportsmanship or class. You head straight out for the exit and start thinking about next year, because this year, they had all the chances to finish them in Game 5 at their most vulnerable state and last night when they were without arguably the best player in the league.

Maybe because they knew that there was a missing man early in the game that they could have done more to keep from showing up.

"Where's Steph? Where's Wardell?"

Found him.

Shit.