Despite both the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors already being eliminated from advancing in the NBA Cup, it was a must-see matchup on Wednesday night between two teams battling for position in a loaded Western Conference.

Although some of the game's allure was sapped further by the pregame announcement that Kevin Durant would miss his second straight game for the Rockets, it still turned out to be a nail-biter from beginning to end. The Warriors ended up losing to the Rockets 104-100, even after taking an 11-point lead midway through the third quarter, and fell back to .500 on the season.  

Though it was a thrilling game, much of the attention in the waning minutes and postgame turned towards Steph Curry. The NBA's sixth-leading scorer first came up hobbling after colliding with Alperen Sengun on a screen with about four and a half minutes remaining in the game.

Curry remained in the game, but looked to be limping at certain points when trying to accelerate or decelerate.

Then, just over a minute later, Curry got into the center of a controversial block/charge foul call with Amen Thompson.

It was initially whistled as an offensive foul against Thompson, but a Rockets' challenge overturned it into a blocking foul on Curry. In the immediate aftermath of the play, Curry came up limping once again.

Though he tried to play through it for the remainder of the game, Curry was visibly in pain for much of his action. With 35 seconds left and the game still in reach for the Warriors, athletic trainer Rick Celibrini talked to Curry on the bench, and the pair ended up walking back to the locker room.

After the game, it was reported that Curry suffered a right quad contusion and will undergo an MRI to determine the severity of the injury. The results of that MRI will be huge to see how many games Curry may miss, but Steve Kerr was positive that it was a quad issue, rather than a knee or ankle injury.

Among the chaos of Curry's injury, the Warriors' dismal second half continued to leak through. The Rockets outscored the Warriors by 16 points in the second half, winning the third quarter by 10 and the fourth quarter by 6. 

The Warriors shot an abysmal 2-21 from three in the second half and just could not seem to find any semblance of consistent offense, especially in the stretch between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth when Curry was on the bench.

Throughout the game, the Rockets also killed the Warriors on the glass. Coming into the game, this was expected due to the Rockets' massive size advantage, but they ended up reeling in 25 offensive rebounds. That is their most in a game since 2007 and nearly doubled the Warriors' total of 13 offensive rebounds.

It's a tough game to lose and even tougher news from the locker room afterwards, as everyone's attention will be focused on Curry's MRI results. The Warriors will get two days off to enjoy Thanksgiving before taking the court on Saturday against the New Orleans Pelicans for Kevon Looney's first game back at Chase Center.