Post Game Party: Warriors need clutch bucket from Curry, come away with a win
“If you stumble, make it part of the dance.”
Just as we all expected, the Golden State Warriors managed to hold off the Houston Rockets for a painfully close win. While far from pretty, a win is a win, and it sure feels nice that the Warriors put one in the right column after such a painful overtime loss in their last game.
DNHQ member Chasing Rings was one of the first game thread comment and for some reason their comment “If you stumble, make it part of the dance” really stuck with me. There were for sure plenty of stumbles tonight.
Golden State needed every second of this game to figure it out, but it felt like a late foul on Jordan Poole was what lit the final fire.
Also, I’d like to take a small moment to collectively thank Kevon Looney. Dude has been putting in solid work all season, and is on one heck of a tear lately. As far as guys stepping up in Green’s absence, I don’t think I can appreciate Looney more, but he keeps coming through with big effort games and making me like him more.
As always, we will resume our standard coverage in the morning, but tonight, we
celebrate an entirely different 5.3 final seconds of regulation than what we got in the previous Warriors game.
Clutch.
Whew.
If Indy could beat Phoenix today that would really make my day.
I'm seeing a lot of praise for Poole's game and he certainly scored the ball at a decent rate but I can't get past this play:
https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?GameEventID=651&GameID=0022100694&Season=2021-22&flag=1&title=Green%20REBOUND%20(Off:2%20Def:0)&sct=plot
Failure isn't an option on a play like this, Poole needs to get that fucking ball. Lee and GP2 would both get that basketball one way or another. If he's not going to out-muscle a 19 year old rookie, how is Kerr supposed to expect him to successfully box out Mikal Bridges in the playoffs?
EDIT: Speaking of costing them in the playoffs, watch the play continue here:
https://youtu.be/7Jyb6RN0fCs?t=127
Look at this (awful) foul that Goble almost called on Poole, but they determined the timeout came first so the Warriors dodged a bullet. Of course, they wouldn't have had to dodge that bullet if Kerr hadn't made probably the worst challenge call he's ever made in the third quarter for a fucking possession change when there was 12 on the shot clock (unsuccessful by the way). You almost always need to save your challenge for crunch time and this was no exception. If that foul was called, the Warriors probably lose the game.
At some point Kerr needs to stop fucking going by feel or whatever he's doing and think about the actual effect on win probability that the call has (which will always be bigger in crunch time unless we are talking foul trouble for Curry/Draymond). I'm worried that Kerr's lack of challenge skills will cost the team in the playoffs.