OAKLAND – As if losing another game to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night wasn’t already bad enough, the Golden State Warriors were visibly frustrated with the officiating for most of the night. That lead to five technical fouls for the team; two of which were given to Draymond Green and led to his ejection in the fourth quarter.
Dray picks up his 13th tech of the season and is ejected from the game. pic.twitter.com/870m2HD2go
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 7, 2018
Regardless, the Warriors acknowledged that the officials only played a small role in their tragic 125-105 defeat to the Thunder.
Rather, it was their 25 turnovers and poor shooting percentage at the three-point line (28.6) that handed them their first losing streak of the season.
“This game had nothing to do with the officials,” Kerr said. “They were fine. They missed some calls, but we were way worse than the officials were. They were fine. They had nothing to do with it. We got completely outplayed.”
Stephen Curry echoed his head coach’s comments, saying “It was a rough night, but if we’re honestly going to say that they’re the reason we lost the game tonight, I think that’s off. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and look at what we can control because we know that’s stuff we can’t control.”
Even after being called for a foul on Russell Westbrook that clearly lacked any physical contact, Kevin Durant breezed over the incident after the game, siding with Kerr and Curry’s opinion.
It doesn’t get much worse than this foul call: pic.twitter.com/zibdlSFYBe
— Dieter Kurtenbach (@dkurtenbach) February 7, 2018
“Well, we were down 28 anyways,” Durant said. “So that wasn’t the deciding factor in the game. It had nothing to do with the outcome. She probably just missed it, just like we missed some defensive assignments, and layups, and free throws. It happens.”