Nick Nurse is being crushed for calling an oddly-timed timeout at the end of Game 5 that seemed to kill the Toronto Raptors’ momentum against the Golden State Warriors on Monday night.
The Raptors were leading 103-97 after Kawhi Leonard had scored 10 straight points to give them the lead. Leonard had made four straight shots, the Warriors had missed two in a row, and the Raptors had all the momentum but decided to halt their run by calling a timeout with 3:05 left. It was bizarre considering the team that’s seeing the game slip away usually calls the timeout, not the other way around.
After the timeout, the Warriors outscored the Raptors 9-2 to win the game 106-105.
Numerous media members expressed surprise over the timeout call by Nurse.
Raptors were absolutely rolling & GSW had only 1 timeout & so they couldn’t stop the run.
Then Nick Nurse called a timeout to stop his own run, and the game has totally flipped.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) June 11, 2019
So easy to say in hindsight. But Nick Nursevmight’ve called the worst time out in NBA history.
— Dan Bickley (@danbickley) June 11, 2019
Nick Nurse with arguably the worst timeout call in NBA Finals history
— Grant Napear (@GrantNapearshow) June 11, 2019
playing devils advocate a bit. don't like that timeout by Nurse. Kawhi is hot. Warriors look tired. why give them time to gather themselves and get their composure back?
— Sanjay Kirpalani (@SanjayKirpalani) June 11, 2019
The Raptors coach shared his reasoning in his postgame press conference. He said they lose the timeouts after the 3-minute mark, so he figured he would use both before they were gone to give his players extra rest.
Nick Nurse is asked why he called that hideous timeout.
[SVP/ESPN] #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/hOrxkq9hfK
— Ƒunhouse (@BackAftaThis) June 11, 2019
The move backfired as Golden State came out hot afterwards.
The Warriors have now forced a Game 6 of the series, which will be on Thursday in Oakland.
