Coach Steve Kerr’s strong criticism of a foul call against his Golden State Warriors in the final moments of their loss to the Houston Rockets was found to be incorrect, according to the NBA on Thursday night.
The controversial play occurred after Stephen Curry missed a 3-pointer with 11.1 seconds remaining, giving the Warriors a 90-89 lead. Gary Payton II was the first to reach the loose ball and seemed to attempt to call a timeout while on the ground. However, Fred VanVleet came in and poked the ball away, with clear contact between the two players.
The ball rolled away, and Jalen Green of the Rockets and Jonathan Kuminga of the Warriors fought for possession, which looked like it could have been a jump ball.
However, Kuminga was called for a foul on Green, who then made both free throws to give the Rockets the lead and win the game. The game was a quarterfinal in the NBA Cup, and Houston moved on to face Oklahoma City in the semifinals on Saturday.
The NBA’s statement supported the referees’ decision, saying that Kuminga “reached over Green in an attempt to get to the ball and pull his shoulders down.” It also mentioned that the contact between Payton and VanVleet while chasing the loose ball was “incidental.”
Kerr had argued for a jump-ball call, claiming that the referees had allowed a lot of contact throughout the game. Some others also thought Payton should have been allowed to call a timeout. Kerr called the foul call “unconscionable.”
“A loose-ball situation, 80 feet from the basket, with the game on the line. I’ve never seen that,” Kerr said. “Think I saw it in college one time, 30 years ago. Never seen it in the NBA. That is unconscionable. I don’t even understand what just happened.”
He added that the game “was taken from us by a call I don’t think an elementary school referee would have made, because that guy would have had feel and said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to decide a game on a loose ball 80 feet from the basket.’”
Kerr also disagreed with officials in a game on Dec. 3 in Denver when his team was behind by four points. Kerr wanted a technical foul to be called on Christian Braun of the Nuggets for trying to call a timeout after gaining possession of the ball when his team had no timeouts left.
If that had happened, the Warriors would have had free throws and the ball with 1.9 seconds remaining. Instead, the officials didn’t clearly see Braun try to call a timeout, and the play was ruled a jump ball. The Warriors lost that game 119-115.
