{"id":71070,"date":"2024-03-29T10:48:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T14:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=71070"},"modified":"2024-03-29T10:51:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T14:51:12","slug":"warriors-coach-steve-kerr-fires-back-at-stephen-curry-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/29\/warriors-coach-steve-kerr-fires-back-at-stephen-curry-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors Coach Steve Kerr Fires Back at Stephen Curry Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Warriors have faced perhaps the most tumultuous season of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Curry<\/a> era, marred by many off-the-court storylines, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/01\/17\/nba-world-reacts-to-death-of-warriors-coach-dejan-milojevic\/\" target=\"_self\">death of assistant coach Dejan Milojevi\u0107<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thompkl01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Klay Thompson<\/a>&#8216;s frustrations.<\/p>\n<p>However, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/12\/16\/draymond-green-swings-at-nurkic-suspened-indefinitely\/\" target=\"_self\">most consistent issue<\/a> this season has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/greendr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Draymond Green<\/a>&#8216;s inability to avoid ejections. Green was given his most recent marching orders less than four minutes into their 101-93 win against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/coaches\/kerrst01c.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Kerr<\/a> appeared on the San Francisco radio station <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZtJvSrigtkw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">95.7 The Game<\/a> to discuss these events.<\/p>\n<h2>Warriors Coach Steve Kerr Fires Back at Stephen Curry Critics<\/h2>\n<h3>Warriors Coach Steve Kerr&#8217;s Comments About Warriors Stars<\/h3>\n<p>Curry cut a visibly frustrated figure following Green&#8217;s ejection.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Steph\u2019s reaction to Draymond\u2019s ejection <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5TH5DYC9w1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/5TH5DYC9w1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCSWarriors\/status\/1773134383324746122?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Kerr had this to say in reference to Curry&#8217;s reaction.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;For Draymond to get kicked out three minutes in, it was really unforgivable. I think Steph may have even been a little upset with himself for not calling Draymond out of there, but I think mostly it was just &#8216;come on man, we need this&#8217;. Steph is such a fighter, such a competitor, and I think all of that combined led to that reaction.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Critics have hinted at a possible lack of leadership from the Warriors Hall of Fame point guard being culpable for Draymond&#8217;s continued antics, yet Kerr was quick to absolve Curry of any blame.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Steve Kerr on people questioning Steph&#8217;s leadership because of Draymond&#8217;s actions:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(Draymond) is a grown man. He&#8217;s got to handle his own business. Any any mention of Steph being culpable is just ridiculous. The way Steph has carried our franchise represented our franchise for\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/abZsErcMY7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/abZsErcMY7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LegionHoops\/status\/1773699681819803716?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Yet Kerr also praised Green for his conduct towards the officials prior to recent events.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;s found a really good balance of being competitive, feisty, playing with an edge, but not going overboard. All of that starts with just staying off the refs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The 2016 NBA Coach of the Year later expressed his frustration with himself for not having addressed the situation with Green during a game against the Miami Heat the night before.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I thought in the Miami game, he was on the refs too much. And I should&#8217;ve intervened, I should&#8217;ve talked to him after the game, and just reminded him that this all starts with being able to stay off the refs. And I didn&#8217;t. I&#8217;m upset with myself for that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Warriors Need Green<\/h3>\n<p>This is Green&#8217;s fourth ejection of the year, the most of any season of his 12-year NBA career. The 34 year-old is the second-most ejected player in NBA regular season history with 19, trailing only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wallara01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rasheed Wallace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iWLeD2Gt2m0?si=_RF87smD3A9Bnotu\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Golden State now needs Green more than ever as they face a tight battle to even make the play-in.<\/p>\n<h3>Kerr and Warriors Facing Tough Finish<\/h3>\n<p>The Warriors occupy the 10th seed in the Western Conference with a record of 38-34. The 11th-seeded Houston Rockets are only a game behind them in the standings. Led by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/greenja05.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Green<\/a>, they&#8217;ve <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/21\/secret-ingredient-rockets-recent-success\/\" target=\"_self\">come out of nowhere<\/a> to win 10 games in a row.<\/p>\n<p>With only 10 games left in the regular season, Green and the rest of the Warriors will have to be on top of their game to avoid missing the play-in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Golden State Warriors have faced perhaps the most tumultuous season of the Stephen Curry era, marred by many off-the-court storylines, including the death of assistant coach Dejan Milojevi\u0107 and Klay Thompson&#8216;s frustrations. However, the most consistent issue this season has been Draymond Green&#8216;s inability to avoid ejections. Green was given his most recent marching [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4773,"featured_media":71073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,2,25,3],"tags":[409,182,202,48,528],"class_list":["post-71070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-featured","category-warriors","category-news","tag-draymond-green","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba-news","tag-stephen-curry","tag-steve-kerr"],"modified_by":"Adam Echchaibi","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4773"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}