DENVER – Frustration followed coach Steve Kerr to the podium Tuesday night at Ball Arena after the Warriors’ 119-115 loss against the Denver Nuggets.
For the Nuggets going on a 10-0 run over the final two and a half minutes. For Golden State committing 15 turnovers that turned into 22 points by Denver. For the Warriors fouling the Nuggets 25 times, 10 more than Denver was whistled for, which led to 35 free-throw attempts and 28 points – 13 more than the Warriors.
And also for the referees clearly missing an attempted timeout from Nuggets guard Christian Braun in the final few seconds when Denver didn’t have any left.
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“Yeah, Braun called a timeout,” Kerr said to begin his postgame press conference. “He dove on the floor, he rolled over. Everybody saw it, except for the three we hired to do the game, and that makes me angry.”
Denver Post reporter Bennett Durando served as the Pool Reporter for the night and asked Crew Chief Tyler Ford why the Nuggets weren’t called for a technical foul when Braun appeared to call timeout. Ford’s explanation was that Braun “never fully or clearly signaled for a timeout.”
Here is their full exchange:
Pool Report on the Final Seconds in Tonight’s Golden State at Denver Game
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Kerr, along with every other Warrior, saw something different than Ford.
“That’s a technical foul,” Kerr continued. “They don’t have a timeout left. That’s a technical foul. We shoot a free throw, we get the ball and we have a chance to win the game. They all told me they didn’t see it.
“He dives on the floor and he rolls over and he goes, ‘Timeout!’ It’s up to the referees – somebody’s got to see it, that’s why there’s three of them. Somebody’s got to see it. So yeah, that made me mad. With that said, that’s not why we lost. We lost because we didn’t close again.”
Down by four points with seven seconds left, Moses Moody shot a 3-pointer from the left wing that took a long, errant bounce. Braun beat Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins to the spot, diving for the ball but rolling over multiple times with the ball in his hands.
Then came the drama.
Video evidence shows Braun put his hands together in a motion to signal a timeout. His teammate Aaron Gordon is even seen waving his arms at Braun and saying, ‘No! No!’ over and over, knowing the Nuggets were out of timeouts.
Instead, with 1.9 seconds remaining in the game, Ford called for a jump ball. Nobody had a better view on the Warriors than Curry, Wiggins and Buddy Hield. Though Hield wasn’t aware Denver was down all its timeouts, he saw what the rest of the Warriors saw.
“You can clearly see him signal for a timeout,” Hield told NBC Sports Bay Area. “He even tried to cover it up. Tony [Ford] knows what he’s doing, man. But, it felt like everything went their way from the refs in the end.”
Multiple Warriors shared their anger with how the game was called, especially down the stretch. Gary Payton II was at the scorer’s table when Braun was on the ground. Even from there, Payton had no hesitation in what was obvious to him from his view.
“Did you see Braun call the timeout?” Payton sarcastically responded. “The other three guys didn’t see it, so I guess that’s all that matters.”
The Warriors weren’t the better team in Denver. They took 16 more shots than the Nuggets and made four more than them, yet still lost by four points. Execution is the name of the game, but it wasn’t in the Warriors’ vocabulary.
But at least a little part of them also feels like the game was taken away from them, knowing they have both the greatest free-throw shooter and 3-point shooter at their disposal in Curry to extend the game to overtime, as opposed to seeing their losing streak extended to five consecutive games, as well as eight in a row against the Nuggets.