NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAVERICKS VS. WARRIORS

May 24, 2022

Steve Kerr

Golden State Warriors

Game 4: Postgame

Dallas Mavericks 119, Golden State Warriors 109

Q. What were the conversations in the fourth quarter when the second unit starts bringing it back, when to bring your main guys in, and why did you decide?

STEVE KERR: Yeah, I mean, with about five minutes left, I think we cut it to 14 or so. And I kind of looked at the other coaches, I looked at Steph, and we just decided if it gets manageable and possible, then let's do it.

And felt like we had a shot with, I guess, three and a half minutes left when we put Steph and Wiggs and Klay in. I also felt like the group that had played that great run in the fourth quarter, maybe was getting a little tired there. And so just made the decision to see if we can pull off a miracle.

But it wasn't meant to be. Dallas was great tonight. They deserved to win. They executed. They played with more force. And this is the Conference Finals. This is how it's supposed to be, two great teams, and they handled us well tonight.

Q. How did you address the team on such an emotional night and get them ready before the game?

STEVE KERR: You know, just talked basketball. Sort of an unspoken awareness of what happened today. It was a very quiet locker room beforehand. I feel like as a coach, my job is getting the team ready to play. Difficult to sort of keep perspective on a day like today.

But that's -- you know, that's the shock and the grief, the anger, is there from all of our guys and I'm sure from everybody in the building. So you just, you have to kept that and go out and play, and that's what we tried to do.

Q. Were there any conversations not to have this game? Were you aware of any discussions?

STEVE KERR: No, I did not hear anything about --

Q. Would you have supported that?

STEVE KERR: I would have supported whatever the league decided. I supported the fact that they decided to play. I mean, you know, we just -- we're just league employees, and if they want us to play, we'll play.

Q. You went with Kuminga with Porter out tonight. What did you think about his minutes tonight?

STEVE KERR: Yeah, JK did a good job. He was part of that group in the fourth quarter that really battled back and gave us a sliver of a chance. He played with some force and got to the line and did some good things for us.

Q. They hit 20 threes. Did you feel like there was more defensive breakdowns for you guys?

STEVE KERR: Yeah, especially early. I think they had seven corner threes in the first quarter, maybe the first half. But they had a bunch of corner threes. One, there was a breakdown in transition after a made basket. Shouldn't have been a problem, and Finny-Smith, I think his first three, wide-open corner three.

We weren't alert tonight defensively. We weren't sharp. And I thought we let them kind of get into a groove, and once a team like that gets into a three-point groove, it's tough to get them out of it.

Q. What do you think those young guys did in the fourth quarter? What did you like about what happened there?

STEVE KERR: I liked the ball movement. I thought overall tonight, the ball did not move well enough way too much dribbling, and I thought that group came out and did a better job moving the ball and we got some easy buckets.

Q. What did you see, to start of the second quarter?

STEVE KERR: Too much dribbling, yeah, and porous defense. So bad combination.

Q. Obviously it's not the result of the game, but did you find yourself thinking or drifting at all, knowing what happened today? Was there any, hey, I've got to get focused here, kind of thing?

STEVE KERR: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Especially before the game, before it started. I think we all felt the anger, the frustrating. I know I expressed it to you guys. So I was pretty emotional, and I tried to just, you know, get myself composed and coach the team.

So you know, once the game started, I was focused on the game. But tough day for everybody. But you know, that -- that sounds like a very inappropriate thing to say, tough day for everybody. You know, I don't even know how to express the grief that those families are feeling right now.

It's too much to fathom, too much to comprehend, and so yeah, we move -- we move on and we hope that someone actually decides to value our citizens' lives more than they value money and power. That's pretty much it.

Q. Steph did Tweet before the game that he did Tweet your video and he says he hopes people watch that at least as much as they watch the game. Did the guys tell you that? Did they tell you that?

STEVE KERR: Steph just came up and looked me in the eye and you know, gave me -- gave me the head nod and gave me a good handshake. You know, it was unspoken but I knew -- I knew what he was expressing.

Q. I was just going to ask you about the rarity of a rain delay in an NBA game.

STEVE KERR: Yeah.

Q. Did you get an explanation, and was it a continuing issue, the moisture?

STEVE KERR: No. Once they got it cleared up, everything was fine. So the only explanation was there was a leak and obviously it was right in that corner in front of our bench. When it was cleared up, it was not an issue.