What it's like to watch Steph Curry grind your favorite team into the ground

Montez with the standard non-Dubs fan Curry reaction face pic.twitter.com/yKmsEkR4wU

— Julie Phayer (@juliephayer) November 20, 2015

Erik Griffin, aka Montez from Workaholics, never intended to bet his life savings on the Clippers game, but then he met Jake. But we'll get there.

Gary is a season ticket holder. After college, he took a job at a friend's microchip company in Silicon Valley -- and what do you know: microchips took off. Their company was one of the few to survive the implosion of the first tech boom -- it thrived, even, and Gary went off and started his own company, and that thrived, too. He spends modestly in spite of his great wealth; at 47, he is beginning to think about retirement. He is well-liked by his friends and coworkers.

He wouldn't really care about basketball all that much, except for his son, his only child, the apple of his eye, Jake.

Jake believes in the Clippers in the way that only a fourth-grader can. He believes that -- whatever the Rockets have done and, especially, whatever the undefeated Warriors are doing -- that this is the Clippers' year. He knows it in his 10-year-old bones.

When DeAndre Jordan left, Jake wept alone in his bedroom, on his bed beneath his DeAndre poster. When the departure was nixed, Jake doubled down and bought two new DeAndre Jordan posters with his allowance, hanging them on either side of the original. Now his room has three grimacing DeAndres lined up in a row. It is the first thing Jake sees when he wakes up in the morning.

Christina and PJ are friends of Gary's. Christina collects crystals and believes she can control the ball if she gets the the balance of eye contact, chanting, and inner harmony just right. She is not correct.

Fabian is Christina and PJ's Danish foreign exchange student. He speaks immaculate English in a deep, rumbling baritone, obtaining a near-perfect score on his TOEFL exam. Christina and PJ do not believe that he speaks English, and address him exclusively in simple nouns. He responds in complete, rumbling sentences, and they say the nouns louder. Fabian hopes to be a surgeon someday. He has not had a conversation in three weeks.

And finally we come to Erik Griffin. He was having a nice time at the game, and as the Clippers roared ahead of the Warriors in the first quarter, he got to talking to Gary and young Jake. Jake, rattling off stats and yelping at passing players, told him this would be the one. The Warriors are 12–0, you say? They're bound for a 73–9 season? They'll easily take the division, and skate right on through to the playoffs?

Not if Jake has anything to say about it, and he has a lot to say.

And you know: there's something about Jake. His preternatural knowledge of the sport, his eerie resemblance to Glen, his passion, his certainty in DeAndre's vindication. Erik Griffin has been talking to some people about a new contract, and Workaholics has been going so well, and everything has just been falling into place. The Clippers are leading by 23 points.

"You know, I know a bookie in Vegas," said Gary.

Why doubt kismet? Erik Griffin took out his phone.

Fabian saw what was happening.

"Mr. Griffin," called Fabian. "I'm not sure that you should do this. The Warriors are known for-"

"Ha! Ha ha!" cried PJ. "Did you hear that? Our little Fabian is trying to learn English! Basketball, Fabian. Do you like basketball?

"Bas-ket-ball," said Christina.

"Okay, Jake," said Erik Griffin, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "We have a deal."

* * *

SB Nation presents: DeMar DeRozan throws down on 7'2 Rudy Gobert