When you lose a game that looked winnable, it’s only natural to go back and parse which decisions might not have been the best.
For Steve Kerr, the decision to pull Stephen Curry late in the third quarter when he was rolling might be one that kept the Warriors head coach up last night according to former Warrior Chris Mullin.
“That’s one of those decisions you make as a coach and you probably don’t get a good night’s sleep,” Mullin said. “You don’t want to second-guess yourself, but I just felt that Steph was rolling so much. They took that lead away, you can just envision Steph knocking down two three within the last two minutes of that third quarter and really demoralizing the Celtics.
“But that did not happen, they’ve gotta move on and re-group. The good thing is, Steph and Klay [Thompson] are cooking.”
While dealing with four fouls, Kerr decided to pull Curry with 2:53 left in the game. At the time, the Warriors led 85-83 and Curry had 15 points in the frame. When Curry returned at the beginning of the fourth, the Celtics had retaken the lead 93-89. They would close on a 23-11 run and Curry would score just two more points.
Curry will have to have another terrific game, and possibly play even more than the 37 minutes he played on Wednesday for the Warriors to have a shot in Game 4.