The Golden State Warriors lost the NBA Cup game against the Denver Nuggets 119-115 on Tuesday night, and head coach Steve Kerr wasn’t happy with how it ended. Speaking to the media after the loss, he was upset about a crucial missed call in the closing moments of the game.
Kerr believes the officials missed Nuggets guard Christian Braun, who called a timeout after going down after losing the ball in the final five seconds of the game. A player calling for a timeout isn’t usually a big deal unless your team is in a timeout — and the Nuggets were all out of TO when Braun made the hand motion.
Kerr saw this (as did several players) and began frantically yelling and waving at the officials, calling for a technical foul, a penalty when a player tries to use a timeout his team doesn’t have. It would give the Warriors a free throw and a possession that could have changed the game as they lost 119-115 at the time. However, the refs called a jump shot instead of a technical with just 1.9 seconds left on the clock and the 4th quarter ended with no more points.
After the game, Kerr was asked the first question about the refs not making the call.
“Braun called timeout. He dived to the floor, rolled over,” Kerr said. “Everybody saw it except for the three guys we hire to make plays, and that makes me angry. That’s a technical foul. They don’t have a timeout. We’re shooting a free throw, we’re going to get the ball, a chance to win the game.
“They [the officials] they all told me they didn’t see it. … The referees see that [it]. That’s why we have three of them. Someone has to see it. So yeah, that pissed me off.”
Crew chief Tyler Ford told a pool reporter after the game that it wasn’t entirely clear what Braun was doing, so instead of calling the Nuggets a technical foul, he called for a jump shot.
“Christian Braun never fully or clearly signaled a timeout,” Ford said, via ESPN. “That’s why the timeout was not recognized.”
Unsurprisingly, Braun said he didn’t ask for a timeout, though he admitted it might have looked that way.
“Maybe it looked like that. I fumbled with the ball on the ground a little bit,” Braun said. “My hands moved, but the referees didn’t say that.
The game was close throughout, but the Warriors managed to scrape together a 10-point lead with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Nuggets were able to erase that deficit and secure the win thanks to a 23-9 run over the final seven minutes.
A win would mean the Warriors could stay at home next week to host the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Cup quarterfinals. Instead, they pack up and head to Texas to play the Houston Rockets.