Steph Curry Was About to Confront Officials Before Steve Kerr Stepped In

The Warriors lost a one-point game to the Clippers last night, but the story in the aftermath wasn’t the loss or how it affected Golden State’s standing in the Western Conference playoff race. It was Steve Kerr getting ejected and Steph Curry fouling out, two rare occurrences, after some extremely questionable officiating in the fourth quarter.

Steph picked up his penultimate foul on a Clippers fast break after the refs missed a goaltending call on the other end. That’s the play that got Kerr sent to the showers, as he picked up two quick technical fouls for rushing the court to scream at the refs.

Less than a minute before that, the refs waved off a running circus floater from Steph that should have been an And-1 ruling that he was fouled on the floor. That got Kerr boiling, and after the missed goaltend, he blew his lid.

After the game, a reporter asked Steph about the incident, and he tried to frame it in such a way as to blame Kerr for losing his cool in a critical situation. Steph wasn’t having it.

“To be honest, I was gonna do that but I saw him. That’s why I fouled Kris Dunn because I was watching coach go crazy and I was appreciative of that. Two crazy calls in a row… I love that. That fire from Steve. Somebody had to do it tonight,” the Warriors veteran explained.

Not only did Steph defend his coach, he said that he was about to do the same thing. That’s something we almost never see, which just goes to show how bad those calls really were.

Steph has three career ejections, all for throwing his mouthpiece, oddly enough. This was Kerr’s fifth career ejection as a coach, and it actually rallied the team, as the Warriors fought back from 10 points down with under eight minutes to play to close the gap to one.

Unfortunately for Golden State, Steph picked up his sixth foul with under a minute to go, so he wasn’t out there to take the final shot. That duty instead fell to Jimmy Butler, and when he missed a midrange jumper in the final seconds, the Warriors fell just short.

Kerr himself has spoken recently about how the Warriors are “a fading dynasty.” Draymond Green got into it on the sidelines a couple of weeks ago, resulting in the the 4 time NBA champion leaving the bench to go to the locker room. They’ve since made up, and this latest incident is just another indication of why the Warriors have been able to keep this thing going for so long.

Rather than throw his coach under the bus for costing his team points, Steph defended his actions and said he was about to do the same thing. That’s the kind of thing that transcends winning or losing one game. Just as it propelled the Warriors to a near-comeback win last night, don’t be surprised if it inspires a winning streak as they get set to start an eight-game homestand.