Steph Curry on Thursday night hit one of the biggest shots of the playoffs when he nailed a 3-pointer to tie Game 3 of the Warriors-Pelicans series in the final seconds of regulation and send it to overtime.
Curry is possibly the greatest 3-point shooter in NBA history, so the last thing Monty Williams wanted was his team to allow the guard a chance to tie the game. Instead, he instructed his players to foul rather than allow a 3-point attempt. The players just failed to execute the game plan.
“We didn’t execute the game plan. We were supposed to foul,” Williams said after the game.
Indeed, this video clip shows Williams did tell his players to foul:
@warriorsworld check out monty trying to tell them to foul before that Steph three pic.twitter.com/0bFVEncSeP
— John Intrater (@intrater) April 24, 2015
Williams’ Pelicans blew a 20-point lead heading into the fourth quarter, so he’s going to look bad no matter what after losing that game. But at least he’s not quite as stupid as he appeared.
There are also a couple of other significant notes about that 3-pointer by Curry. One, the Warriors are lucky Steph’s first shot didn’t go in, because it would have only counted for two upon review.
@HPbasketball another lucky break… Having Curry miss the "3" that would've been overturned. Then hitting the real 3 pic.twitter.com/LyNd7RSiuv
— Kyle Morgan (@SpursFanatic2) April 24, 2015
Also, Curry was unquestionably fouled on the 3-pointer he made and should have been sent to the free throw line for a chance to break the tie and win the game.
Even the referees sort of acknowledged that.
According to a couple sources, the explanation the Warriors received was that Curry would’ve gotten the foul if he had missed the 3
— Marcus Thompson (@ThompsonScribe) April 24, 2015
Maybe the Pelicans got Williams’ message confused and thought they were supposed to foul AFTER the shot. Yeah, that’s probably what happened.
