STEVE Kerr came under fire on Wednesday after his decision not to call a timeout in the Golden State Warriors' Game Four loss to the Houston Rockets backfired.
It turned out Kerr tried to call for one.
"Well, I wanted the timeout. Draymond was trying to call one around four seconds," Kerr told reporters after a 95-92 win allowed the Rockets to tie the NBA Western Conference finals at 2-all heading to Game Five on Thursday (Friday, Manila time).
The Warriors, who until the loss had won 16 straight postseason games at home, came down for a final offensive play with 12 seconds left and down three points after a James Harden miss.
Kerr didn't call a timeout after the Kevin Durant rebound, explaining that "I'm always a proponent of pushing the ball off of a miss rather than taking a timeout, letting the defense get set up. So I thought we'd get a better shot in transition. That's why I let them play."
However, the final play went awry, ending with a trapped Klay Thompson throwing up a desperation shot from the baseline as the final second ticked away.
By then, Kerr said he was resigned to the fact that the referees wouldn't stop the play to award the Warriors a timeout.
"Once he got trapped, and at that point the officials weren't looking, and they're not going to look down at our bench. So I saw Draymond trying to call it, and I was hoping they'd give it to us, but we didn't get it," said the two-time champion coach.
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