The Warriors were sloppy on Wednesday night and it cost them against the Phoenix Suns. Despite some rare, much improved defense, the Warriors’ rampant turnovers and missed shots did them in.
It ended with Chris Paul taking over late by hitting a couple of key, patented mid-range jumpers and forcing an ignominious Draymond Green turnover.
After Green turned the ball over, there was one last opportunity for the Warriors to tie the game. That possession resulted in this, where Jordan Poole launched from halfcourt, came up empty, and left quite a few folks scratching their head.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr defended the shot on KNBR, explaining why he told Poole to take it before the possession if the opportunity presented itself.
“When you have no timeouts left, it’s really hard to play the foul game because if they fouled him and there’s four seconds left, now you’ve got to miss a free throw, and try to get the offensive rebound. And then that would have been one way to play it,” Kerr said. “He and I talked before the play and I told him, ‘Hey, we have no timeouts left and they’re gonna foul.’
“We already knew they fouled on the previous possession, they fouled Draymond. So I told him, I said, ‘If you sense that they’re gonna foul you, you can you can go ahead and shoot it.’ And we’ve seen Chris Paul make this play before.”
The problem with that approach is that the Suns rightly pulled away from Poole and declined to foul once they saw what he was cooking up.
Kerr even said that referees have a tendency not to call a foul in those half-court heave situations.
Still, the other option was having no chance to tie the game, given that the Warriors had no timeouts left. So the heave made some sense.
“It’s one of those tricky plays where you’re not sure how the refs are going to judge it,” Kerr said. “But your options are very few. The only thing I would say to that play is if you go up and they haven’t fouled you — like you kind of know as you go up. Okay, they didn’t reach. Well can you find a guy at that point? Can you can you find a teammate who’s open? But the options are pretty limited.”
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