After being held at bay during the third quarter of the game against the red-hot Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night, Stephen Curry took a split second to glance over at Golden State Warriors’ head coach Steve Kerr during the final seconds of the fourth. Harrison Barnes had managed to tie the game 122-122 and as the team, the bench, the crowd were busy feeding off it, Kerr took note of the defensive liability on the court in those pivotal seconds.
Under normal circumstances, Kerr would call a timeout in order to set up the play. It took a quick blink to see that Dallas had no timeouts left in their pocket and 39-year-old Dirk Nowitzki on the floor. Kerr managed to make contact with Curry and Draymond Green wordlessly, and the rest simply fell into place.
Steph gonna Steph. pic.twitter.com/XwE1rYTeAF
— Michael Gallagher (@MikeSGallagher) January 4, 2018
“It was just some miscommunication up top,” rookie Dennis Smith Jr. said following the Mavs 125-122 loss. “That’s it. It is something we can fix. It was a bad time for it to happen.”
What was also impressive was the blazing 10-0 run the Mavs went on after trailing 120-110 in that final quarter. Barnes held his team up after Klay Thompson practically defied gravity with a layup from some askew angle that Gumby wouldn’t even recognize and tied the game up. But thanks to the all-offense lineup attempting to mark their territory on the floor, Kerr saw his chance.
“I liked Steph’s three at the end,” Kerr said to the press. “The previous five, six, seven eight plays were an utter disaster, completely mindless basketball. They made some big shots, but we were handing them the ball on a silver platter. But we made the big shot at the end. Steph mad the big shot, Draymond set a great screen and we escaped, but it shouldn’t have been that hard.”
The unfortunate loss kicked the Mavericks’ winning streak dead and the air deflated from the AAC one more time during this spectacularly bizarre season.
Dallas, hoping to start a brand new winning streak, face off against the visiting Chicago Bulls on Friday night.