WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is a five-time NBA champion, but he’s also a ten-time “non-champion”. You cannot win them all, as the saying goes, and Kerr has had his fair share, but out of the fifteen seasons in his NBA career, Kerr has made the playoffs an astounding eleven times.
With the Cleveland Cavaliers early in his professional journey, he lost in the first round, then to Michael Jordan‘s first stint with the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals. Even after he joined the very same Bulls the next year, with Jordan departed for his first retirement, those Scottie Pippen-led Bulls only made it to the Eastern Conference Semifinals, falling at the hands of the Pat Riley‘s New York Knicks and the next year to the Shaquille O’Neal-led Orlando Magic.
It wasn’t until Jordan came back that Kerr won four straight O’Brien trophies, the three with Michael then the fourth with David Robinson and Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.
After his fourth title, Kerr once again succumbed to Shaq, although this time, O’Neal had joined forces with Kobe Bryant on the Los Angeles Lakers. The year after that, Kerr joined the Portland Trail Blazers and was bounced in the first round by the Shaq/Kobe monster.
But Kerr ended his career with his fifth ring a year later back on the Spurs, this time with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, as well as Duncan, of course.
And do not forget his tenure as general manager of the Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns, where the team got as far as the Western Conference Finals during his final year there in 2010, losing to the Lakers. The Suns had also lost in the first round and not made the playoffs in the two previous years while Kerr was GM.
Suffice it to say, he has a lot of experience in both winning and losing to know what it takes to get over the hump.
On Monday at Phoenix, after the Suns had tied the game, 46-46, going into halftime as a result of these plays, as we wrote on our LetsGoWarriors.com halftime recap:
Curry threw a bad lead lob in an attempt to feed Thompson behind the Suns’ transition defense. Marcus Morris easily stole the pass and instead of the Warriors going up by double-digits, Bledsoe got a three on the way back.
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TJ Warren followed up a missed layup by Green that went too hard off the board, and got an and-one assisted by Bledsoe as Len got in the way of the Warriors defense. That gave the Suns a 7-0 run and the Golden State lead was suddenly cut to 46-44 with 1:04 left.
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Curry messed up again as Len managed to knock his dribble away after being switched on a pick-and-roll with Green. PJ Tucker saved the ball from going into the sidelines and Bledsoe streaked down the court for a layup.
“I got on him at halftime a little,” Kerr told reporters after the Phoenix game. “The last two minutes of the first half were really disappointing.”
“We had a 10-point lead and I threw a full-court pass trying to look for Klay (Thompson) in transition,” Curry explained at morning shootaround before the Pistons game at home, two days later. “One of the Morris twins didn’t even have to reach for it, just landed in his lap pretty much and they turned that into a 7-0 run.”
So what does a five-time champion do to get the point across to his budding, MVP-caliber superstar? Play the NBA Playoffs card, of course.
“Basically just said in front of everybody, I’ve got to control the tempo of the game, make smarter decisions,” said Curry. “A turnover in that situation, especially the one that it was, gives them all the momentum back. We had complete control of the game up until that point.”
“Be smarter with the ball because, big picture, we don’t want to be sitting at home in May or June upset that we let a huge opportunity go or kept falling short of our goal of winning a championship based on how valuable each possession is in the playoffs.”
“So just be smarter — it wasn’t this calm,” said the measured Curry with a laugh during the usually quiet media availability session at the Warriors’ practice facility. “He wasn’t saying it this calm.”
Kerr, who has eight technicals this season so far, just one short of the lead in technicals accrued by an NBA coach behind Indiana’s Frank Vogel, has been known to have a “darker” side to him.
Against the Cleveland Cavaliers, he took off his jacket in anger at veteran official Bennett Salvatore.
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“Basically what you see when he got that technical when he took his jacket off” is what is was like to hear from Kerr during that halftime, said Curry.
“Every coach has to have that when the team’s not playing well,” Curry added. “We had a tie ball game on the road and he was still lighting us up because we want to be great and we weren’t great in the first half.”
While Kerr will sometimes light the torch for emphasis, he also makes it a point to give credit where credit is due, as well.
“He came out in the second half just on fire and locked in and he was incredible,” said Kerr of Curry, who went on to score 25 of his 36 points in that half, after the game against the Suns.
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