Warriors head coach Steve Kerr screamed at the officiating crew before leaving the court after the team’s 119-115 loss in Denver on Tuesday night, explaining in his post-game media session that he believed the referees failed to notice Nuggets guard Christian Braun calling for a timeout in the game’s final seconds with his team out of timeouts (Twitter video link).
“Braun called a timeout,” Kerr said, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “He dove on the floor, he rolled over. Everybody saw it except for the three guys we hire to do the games, and that makes me angry. That’s a technical foul. They don’t have a timeout left. We shoot a free throw, we get the ball, we got a chance to win the game. (The referees) all told me they didn’t see it. … It’s up to the referees to see (it). That’s why we have three of them. Somebody’s got to see it. So yeah, that made me mad.”
Crew chief Tyler Ford told a pool reporter after the game that Braun “never fully or clearly” signaled for a timeout, a ruling Braun agreed with.
“No,” Braun said when asked if he had called timeout. “It might’ve looked like it maybe. I was fumbling the ball on the ground a little bit. My hands moved, but the refs didn’t call it.”
It was a frustrating finish for the Warriors, who were up by 11 points with just over six minutes left and still held a six-point lead with two-and-a-half minutes to play. While Kerr strongly disagreed with the officials’ decision on the Braun play in the final seconds, he acknowledged that it shouldn’t have gotten to that point.
“That’s not why we lost,” Kerr said. “We lost because we didn’t close. Again. This is like the fifth game in a row where we’ve — maybe not all five (losses) — but most of these games in this stretch, we’re not closing, we’re not executing, we’re not making good decisions, and it’s got to improve.”
Here’s more on the Warriors:
- Draymond Green, who missed Tuesday’s game due to left calf tightness, was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Wednesday, according to Kerr (story via Sam Gordon of The San Francisco Chronicle). As Andy Lindquist of NBC Sports Bay Area relays, Green said on his podcast that he’s a little concerned about the calf issue, but is confident in the medical staff and believes they’re getting ahead of it before it gets any worse.
- Kerr expressed frustration with Brandin Podziemski during and after Tuesday’s loss for a pair of reckless turnovers – including one in a 5-on-4 situation in transition – and committing a third-quarter foul on a jump shooter, as Anthony Slater of The Athletic details. “I love Brandin,” Kerr said after addressing a couple specific plays that bothered him. “Hell of a player. Hell of a future ahead of him. But I hope he watches this clip because he needs to hear it. He’s gotta be a smart, tough, great decision-maker. He’s very capable of it. That’s his next step.”
- Even with Green sidelined, Kerr trimmed his rotation a little on Tuesday, with Lindy Waters earning his first DNP-CD since November 12 after having logged double-digit minutes in each of Golden State’s past eight games. As Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area notes, it was a productive night for both Jonathan Kuminga, who scored 19 points as part of the starting lineup, as well as Moses Moody. After playing a season-low three minutes on Saturday, Moody scored 13 points in nearly 21 minutes and had a positive plus/minus rating.
That has been the Warriors biggest problem the past 2.5 seasons. Not Kerr, not Podz, not the lack of a “true center”. It has been turnovers. Guys that know better are making unforced errors. It usually leads to points the other way. The turnovers were minimal when they had their Championship run. When they did have a bad turnover night, it lead to loses. But, the past 2 seasons have been bad. This year, they are compounding the problem by being last in FT%. Giving up easy points leads to loses. Teams will just hack away knowing they can’t shoot FT. Clean up the fundamentals and they will go far.
Totally agree! FT percentage is unacceptable.
Giants74 said:
> (Free throws) has been the Warriors biggest problem the past 2.5 seasons.
That’s false.
A team’s FT% is a small factor in success relative to other teams.
GSW averages 21.9 free throws per game, we make 15.4 FT’s per game.
GSW’s team FT% is 70%, the NBA average is 75%.
If GSW had the NBA average FT% of 75%, we’d score 1 more point per game.
Coaching can’t improve FG%, so, agreed, that’s not Kerr’s fault.
What DOES matter about fouls: the total number a team draws and commits each game, and the discrepancy between these. This is where GSW has been at the bottom of the league for several years, yielding a deficit of 5-8 points per game each season. This problem can and should be influenced by coaching.
Waitin on Babey J epic rant on Podz and him telling us about how Moody is Him.
Steve Kerr is a baby. Warriors didn’t score the last 2.5 minutes, that’s why they lost
He’s basically using Podz to criticize other players…
Kerr needs to teach them how to shoot free throws. TJD is just terrible at the line.
Wiggins too. His shot is so flat.., it has to be almost perfect to go in.
Giants74, you have become to Steve Kerr what Davey J is to Brandin Podziemski — every post a desperate cry to protect Kerr from fan critiques. Take comfort, your guy has four ‘Chips, and isn’t paying attention to anything we say. But, I advise you to read no further.
Last night Kerr took a big step in the right direction as far as lineups go — getting back to playing his best players the most. I hope that brought back memories for him of last season and those years from before. Kudos on:
1. Triple bonus to Kerr on Lindy Waters: no starting lineup, no closing lineup, and, even, a DNP! That meant those 27 mpg Lindy’s been playing as a starter could go guys who haven’t spent their NBA careers on 2-ways.
2. Kuminga back in the starting lineup, plays 29 mins, scores 19, shows his continued growth in passing — basically, looking like the guy Kerr’s bosses just offered $150M.
3. Wiggins played 31 mpg, more than the 27 mpg he’s averaged this year, while having the best season of his career offensively (PER is highest of career, and he’s shooting 40% from deep.)
An analytics-based approach to determining lineups, practiced by > 95% of teams with winning records, is to play your best players as much as possible, and to vary lineup combinations as little as possible. (The statistical evidence for the approach, from 30+ years of NBA data, is overwhelming.) Of course, GSW happens to have an opposing interest with Steph and Draymond, preferring to limit them to under 30 mpg, as is common with aging players. Still, I’ll repeat these two pieces of guidance for Kerr because all analytical models offer them (based on data from last season and this season), and they are provocative:
1. Play Wiggins and Kuminga as much as possible, at least 34 minutes per game. (Yes, at least 34, not 24, minutes.) Both players can play that many minutes without reducing performance. Wiggins played that much in Minnesota. Both players project as > 20 PPG scorers if they play that much. The stats show they play well together. Kuminga was part of all of the Warriors best lineups last year, and, like Wiggins, his points-per-minute scales up with minutes played (although this particular statistical inference is less certain than the others cited).
2. Stop with the 12 man lineup experiment. It may have been worth trying given that it hadn’t been tried by any team in recent memory. But, with 25% of the season gone, it has now proven as bad an idea as the historical data predicted. Whatever the gains from it may be (having more energy on defense, increasing team morale, etc.), they are exceeded by the disadvantages of giving your best players’ minutes to your worst players and, just as importantly according to statistics, decrease in performance by all players based on inconsistent lineup combinations.
Again, these two points are not my opinion. It’s what the numbers say.