There was a chance for the Warriors to put a miserable fourth quarter behind them and bury the Rockets in the Western Conference finals.
What followed was one of the ugliest possessions you could imagine the uber-talented team producing. Trailing 94-92 and regaining possession with 12 seconds left, Draymond Green passed it to Kevin Durant in the backcourt, who then moved it to Klay Thompson near the corner. Thompson tried to break free of Trevor Ariza for a shot, but was unable and eventually settled for a contested airball turnaround that all but sealed the Warriors’ fate.
There were two main questions to be answered after that play:
1. Why did Durant give up the ball?
He is one of the premiere scorers in the game and represents the Warriors’ best chance of one-on-one success. He got the ball to Thompson in a position that was far from ideal. He had little space to operate — Green was a few feet to his right — and Ariza could not have defended him better before or after he caught the ball.
“I raced it down, I was trying to see if I had some options and I saw Klay running along the baseline and maybe should have waited till he set his feet, but I threw a bounce pass and … but that’s not the reason why we lost the game,” Durant told reporters afterward. “We have to live with that, move on and be better next game, but it’s the whole game we have to be better at.”
2. Why didn’t the Warriors use a timeout?
Draymond was signaling for a timeout when Klay was stuck in the corner on that last possession 👀🤷🏽♂️ #Warriors#Rockets#WCFpic.twitter.com/yd8uXtFYvm
— Ball Don't Stop (@balldontstop) May 23, 2018
They had one remaining and nothing to save it for. Coach Steve Kerr explains:
“I wanted the timeout,” Kerr said in his postgame presser. “Draymond was trying to call one around four seconds once [Thompson] got trapped, and at that point the officials weren’t looking, and they’re not going to look down at our bench. I saw Draymond trying to call it and I was hoping they’d give it to us but you know, we didn’t get it.
“But I’m always a proponent of pushing the ball off of a miss rather than taking a timeout and letting the defense get set up,” Kerr said. “I thought we would get a better shot in transition, that’s why I let them play.”
Replays did show Green trying to call a timeout, but within Kerr’s explanation is why it is so dangerous to depend on the referees noting him in the moment.
Kerr has done little wrong since taking over the Warriors, but this will not go down as his finest moment. It is a debatable decision that ended up becoming a worst-case scenario.
Though, it will be forgotten if the Warriors are able to beat the Rockets, but that is now at least in doubt with the series even 2-2 and headed back to Houston on Thursday night.
