Just when you thought you were done wrapping your head around Sunday’s classic Golden State Warriors loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Warriors would like to point out that you still have one final bow stuck on the underside of your forearm. And that your Christmas tree looks a little crooked, in retrospect, after scrolling through a series of pictures from Sunday afternoon.
GSW gave up a double-digit lead to the champion Cavaliers on Christmas Day, as Cleveland’s cause was no doubt aided by both the home crowd and home cooking from the referees in equal parts. Richard Jefferson clearly tripped Warriors star Kevin Durant on a play that could have led to the Warriors stealing the game on a last-second shot.
With 3.1 seconds left, as Dan Devine discussed on Monday, Jefferson made “foot to foot contact” with the first-year Warrior, pushing already apoplectic W’s fan into furthered state of conniptions in yet another instance of the NBA doing the team that features Durant, reigning two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry and All-Stars Draymond Green and Klay Thompson dirty.
Speaking after shootaround to the press on Tuesday, though, Durant was quick to defend referees Mike Callahan, Sean Corbin and Matt Boland, while taking aim at the league’s controversial ‘Last Two Minute’ reports:
“They should get rid of it. Our refs don’t deserve that. They’re trying their hardest to get the plays right, and you look at a play in slo-mo and say it’s wrong? I think it’s (BS) that they do that. It’s full of (s–t) that you throw the refs under the bus like that after the game, like it matters.
“They’re going to try to be perfect, without just going out there and relaxing and making the right call. You can’t fine us for criticizing (and then) throw them under the bus for a two-minute report? What about the first quarter? The second quarter? The third quarter? I think it’s (BS).”
Durant isn’t alone, as Chicago Bulls star Dwyane Wade also criticized the reports earlier in 2016-17; pointing out as Durant did that prioritizing the last two minutes of a close game seems like an odd arrangement, and that the disconnect between player fines and referee admonishments hardly seems fair to anyone involved.
As for the Warriors, the team that technically took in that slate of unfair work from the crew of referees on Sunday? Durant doesn’t want the excuses to linger:
“The game is over. We’re moving on.”
Coach Steve Kerr echoed those thoughts, via Pro Basketball Talk:
Kerr said the two missed calls late didn't decide Sunday's game. pic.twitter.com/5a8bVifacJ— Connor Letourneau (@Con_Chron) December 27, 2016
“Foot-to-foot contact” can’t be cried about on the same afternoon that saw a 26-5 team blow a 14-point lead in the final quarter of a contest against a team they blew a 3-1 NBA Finals lead against just six months earlier.
Durant’s acknowledgement of Richard Jefferson’s foul alongside his own reckoning that the loss to Cleveland occurred elsewhere was in place directly after Sunday’s match. From Marc Spears at the Undefeated:
“I would’ve made that shot if he didn’t trip me up,” Durant told The Undefeated. “But they ain’t calling it on him at their crib. It’s not his fault. It’s not the refs fault, either.”
Seems fair enough. Some 48 hours after perhaps the best game of the NBA’s 2016-17 season, we might be ready to move on.
Unless Richard Jefferson wants to add anything …
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