Steve Kerr is going to lose sleep after Wednesday’s loss. He’s got a lot to kick himself over, he said, as his Warriors blew a 16-point lead and lost at the buzzer to the Denver Nuggets. It wasn’t the sendoff into the All-Star break he or anyone else in the Bay had hoped for.
“I made some decisions at the end that didn’t work out,” Kerr said.
Monte Morris’ 3-pointer at the buzzer put the Nuggets on top for a 117-116 win. One play doesn’t win or lose an NBA game, but there’s plenty in those last 5.9 seconds for Kerr and the rest of the Warriors to pore over.
Teams practice situational basketball all the time. The situation Wednesday is a common one: up two points, 5.9 seconds left.
In the huddle during Denver’s timeout, the message was simple: don’t give up a 3-pointer, Stephen Curry told reporters postgame.
So when the Nuggets inbounded the ball to Jokić in the high post, as everyone in the Chase Center and watching at home could’ve anticipated, how did everything go so wrong for Golden State?
Curry, whose fadeaway jumper gave Golden State a 116-114 lead, took the brunt of the responsibility. His assignment was Morris. After lobbing the entry pass to Jokić, Morris cleared out through the paint. Curry followed him, but sagged into the paint as Morris retreated to the perimeter.
Curry wanted to show himself in the paint to throw Jokić off-balance, he said. Looney played strong defense to force Jokić into help, Curry added.
As Jokić backed Looney down, Curry was all the way under the basket in the restricted circle where he could play no strong defense in any way. The guard also lost track of time and thought Jokić needed to put up a shot to beat the clock, a feeling confirmed by Jokić gazing up at the rim. But Jokić saw the clock the entire time and kicked out to Morris.
Curry was positioned much too deep into the paint to recover in time.
“I took the bait,” Curry said. “He made a great pass. I realized where I was and tried to make a play on the ball and contest the shot.”
Perhaps a decision Kerr will grapple with is having Curry in for the final possession. Though the two-time MVP is having a terrific defensive season and is one of the game’s smartest players, Gary Payton II dominated all night on Wednesday. GPII recorded six steals and a block and has blossomed into one of the NBA’s most lethal perimeter defenders. Kerr could have easily put him on the court for defensive purposes, as he often does at the end of halves.
Another questionable decision: keeping Looney out on the floor. The Warriors, who had led by as much as 16 points, maintained an advantage for the first 47 minutes of the game. One of the biggest reasons why the Nuggets were even in position to tie or win the game with 5.9 seconds left was because Looney went 2-for-6 at the free throw line when Denver intentionally fouled him. During the Hack-A-Looney stretch, GSW got outscored by five, including a 2:26 drought.
But Looney was Golden State’s best shot at defending Jokić one-on-one. Against most teams, the Warriors like to close with smaller lineups, but the 6-foot-11, 280-pound MVP removed that option.
And Looney being in the game was all the more reason for Curry to stay home on the shooter; Looney was in to stop Jokić in the post. If he didn’t, the Warriors could still win in overtime.
So it came down to Curry. And he knows it.
“Monte made a clutch bucket,” Curry said. “And I gave it to him. The last thing you can do in that situation is give up a 3. And I did that.”
