BOSTON – Steve Kerr made a lot of high-pressure, high-stakes decisions in his NBA career. Alike that afternoon in 1995 when he got bored Michael Jordan in one Chicago Bulls practice and make a selection of throwing a forearm and ending with a black eye.
The Golden Empire Warriors‘the coach had another big game with seven minutes left on Friday in a crucial Game 4 of NBA Finals when he decided to pull Draymond Green out of the game. Warriors fell five points from Boston Celtics and is in danger. It’s as simple as the fact that Green isn’t playing well and the player he’s after, Kevon Looneyto be.
The Warriors went on 11-3 for the next five minutes as Green went out and they took a pretty good lead. Kerr then decided to just use Green on defense as much as he could in the final minutes, even having a timeout call to get him out of the game. In a more limited role, Green made a number of impact plays and had one of his best stretches in the series as the Warriors ended. Victory 107-97 even the series with the score 2-2.
To them, these Finals look like Stephen Curry’s greatness compared to the youth of the Celtics will presumably show in the practice 3-point shots and modern pick-and-roll coverage. But when this turns into a three-game series, the title may revolve around an old scenario: the big boys.
It will come down to how Kerr manages what could end up being a difficult situation with Green on one side. And the health of the Celtics defensive ace Robert Williams IIIwho looked like he aggravated a knee injury late in game 4 in what was likely to become the turning point of the game.
Both Kerr and the Celtics coach, Ime Udoka, probably know these realities and they are ready to attack them until retelling the story after the game.
“I didn’t see anything with Rob and I didn’t hear anything,” Udoka said.
It’s like a fool to assume Williams played all four minutes of play and signal to the bench to ask to leave the game. After a while he was dragged away and never returned. The Warriors overcame the Celtics by seven points in those final three minutes.
Williams has the best defensive stats in this series to date. When he was on the floor in Game 4, the Celtics were six points ahead of the Warriors. In his absence, they were overtaken by 16 points. Udoka may have known that he was unavailable for a long time.
Williams has 12 blocks and five steals in the chain. He had a career-high playoff with 12 rebounds on Friday. When he was on the floor, the Celtics were +20 in four games. In games 3 and 4, he looked as nimble as he had been for weeks. He was covering the vast ground, hitting and often causing the Warriors to cower.
Recovering from knee surgery at the end of the season and a bruise on his left knee, Williams’ life consisted of competing and treating his knee for weeks. He gets a deep tissue massage in his calves and front of his knees daily. Tonnage ice, electrical muscle stimulation treatment, and a procedure called blood flow restriction, which involves placing a ring around the knee for compression to promote healing.
It worked: After missing seven of the Celtics’ first 14 playoffs, he played eight games in a row. But now it’s a matter of possible severity, and it’s also unclear how he’ll feel on Monday in San Francisco for Game 5 (9 p.m. ET on ABC) can eventually become a big variable.
“It’s up and down,” Williams said of his knee before Game 4. “The kind of adrenaline that carries me.”
Then there’s the brewing scenario with Green, who has been so restricted from committing offenses in these Finals that Williams will often be wary of him because it allows freelancing elsewhere. But around being on the bench, he was really effective in the fourth half, posting five of nine rebounds and three of eight assists in limited minutes.
Looks like it’s the plan to reduce Green’s minutes, Kerr says; power forward played at a low 33. And Kerr took Looney out of the starting lineup partially so he could set up a rotation that would allow Looney to play more in the fourth quarter.
Kerr still has to make the call at the moment, and it’s one of the best moves he’s made in the series. It can even go up to “seasonal savings”. Looney played a total of six minutes in the fourth quarter of the first three games of the series; he played almost eight minutes in the crucial fourth quarter of game 4.
“Like most coaches, if you have a team that’s doing well, you just stay with it,” Kerr said when discussing the choice. “I do not play [Looney] enough in game 3. That was my mistake. It was important to get him out there and he had a huge impact on the game. “
Looney is a whopping +36 in the streak after going +21 in Game 4. He’s the team’s best rebounder and rim defender while limiting mistakes. He has a series of baskets around the belt, shooting 13 out of 18 when he gets the error and skipping when the attention goes elsewhere. It’s the complete opposite of Green’s 6 out of 26 shooting.
“I’m certainly never thrilled to walk out of a game with seven minutes in the fourth quarter in a must-win,” Green said. “But, at the end of the day, if that’s what the coach decides, then you go for it. You know, I had to give my best in the game.”
If the same situation happens in Game 5 or 6 or maybe even 7, Kerr might have to do it again. Looney is the Warriors’ best man. Although Green and Looney often play together, for Golden State to best attack in times of crisis, Kerr can only play one.
Though they’ve had battles over the years, Kerr is on Green’s side even if his temper and offense in recent years have made it all the more difficult. That’s being seriously tested right now, and it’s only going to get more and more intense.
For both sides with these big boys, it’s all a big part of this Finals.
“I never want our players to be happy if I take them out,” Kerr said. “Draymond is extremely competitive. Whatever happens in Game 5, that’s what we’re going to do.”
