ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — Andre Iguodala wasn’t supposed to drive right baseline and hit that buzzer-beater. According to Iguodala, the play was supposed to be a fake handoff back to Klay Thompson after Thompson inbounded the ball to Iguodala. But then again, the Golden State Warriors weren’t supposed to be trailing by one with 2.3 seconds to go.
They weren’t supposed to allow Russell Westbrook to get off a three-pointer that put the Oklahoma City Thunder up by one, 115-114.
“That last timeout, it was dark in that huddle,” Warriors head coach Mark Jackson said, “Proud of my guys because we fought back and found a way to get a victory even when things seemed to be pretty bad.”
“That’s my fault, I’ve got to learn from that and be up on (Westbrook),” Thompson said, “I didn’t realize there was two seconds left. I thought he’s so athletic, he’s going to drive to the rim.”
“As soon as he let it go,” said Kevin Durant, “it looked good. Coach did a great thing by not calling a timeout and letting us go. They kind of got off-balance a little bit and it was a great shot.”
Iguodala wasn’t very pleased.
“When KD got the rebound I said, ‘Don’t let them get a three,'” Iguodala explained, “They call for a pick and roll and then he jumps and throws it to Russ. I get a hand on it and almost steal it. Russ catches it three feet behind the three and he gets a three off. And he makes the shot and it’s kind of like you get the wind knocked out of you, being up 14.”
In the ensuing timeout, Jackson made the right decision to go to his most tenured player: Iguodala.
“They were down, upset,” Jackson said at the post-game presser, “You look up and say, ‘How did (the Thunder) climb all the way back? How?’
“You start beating yourself up. That’s when you have a moment. They looked at each other and realized there is still time left and we can execute because we work on it everyday.”
“Coach drew up the play,” Iguodala said, “That’s when confidence comes back a bit. He called my number, felt really good about that. Then when you execute like that, when that’s not even the play, but you can read what the teammates — and I’ve only been here a short time — that shows how much high of an IQ basketball players we are and how much better we can become because we’ve come so far in a short period of time.”
“Iguodala hit a great shot,” Durant said, “So it is what it is.”
“It went from a terrible mood to the best mood you could have,” said Thompson, “So thank Andre for that.”
“They overplayed him,” Jackson said, “He read it, reacted, stayed patient, got the catch and (made) an incredible shot.”
All’s well that ends well? Not so fast.
“We didn’t play extremely well on the offensive end,” said Stephen Curry, who was the decoy on that last play, tucked in the corner with Westbrook guarding him, “just missing some easy shots and trying to find our spacing.”
Iguodala said on the post-game radio, TV, and locker room interviews that the Warriors’ offensive sets weren’t working in crunch time. The Thunder started making shots and the lead dwindled from 14 to 10 to 6. He said that his team got conservative.
“We’ve got to continue to push the ball and gets stops and not just wait for the time to run out,” Iguodala said.
Not one to bask in the glory, but rather put the moment in perspective in the long season ahead for his team, Iguodala gave us these closing thoughts:
It feels good for the night, I guess. I’ve played in places where it’s sort of, ‘What have you done for me lately’, so you learn to get over the good and the bad days pretty fast. So, like I said, we all have a high expectation, high goals. I’m ready for next game. How can we get better? How can we improve? I saw a lot of things that we can learn from tonight’s game and I’m looking forward to getting it right and executing on the court.
“It’s a great lesson for us,” Jackson said post-game, “because you can tell yourself that (you’re going to execute with 2.3 seconds left) but it’s another thing to experience it.”
Great win for the squad
— Andre Iguodala (@andre) November 15, 2013
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