Steve Kerr acknowledged before Sunday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns that he used a poor choice of words when being critical of his Golden State Warriors following a loss to the Indiana Pacers on Thursday night.
After the 20-point defeat to the Pacers, Kerr said that his team didn’t care. Now Kerr said publicly that that was a poor choice of words.
“I probably chose my words poorly in Indianapolis when I said they didn’t care. That didn’t mean they didn’t care. What that meant to me was they didn’t box out, they didn’t get into passing lanes, they didn’t compete at a high level. But when you say that somebody doesn’t care, that can be interpreted as questioning their character,” Kerr said, via a video shared by Marcus Thompson.
“I think everybody knows how I feel about our guys. I love our guys and they’re an amazing group, a championship group. I probably chose my words poorly, but what I’m trying to remind our guys is in order to win in the playoffs, you better be defending at a high level. For the most part this year we have, but the last 8-9 games, we have not. It’s not so simple that you just flip a switch.”
Kerr is likely making his comments as somewhat of an olive branch extended towards his players. Kevin Durant was one Warriors player who rejected Kerr’s critique after the loss to Indiana, so Kerr likely heard from his players about it. But it’s Kerr’s job to light a fire under his players’ behinds, and with the playoffs approaching, now seems like a good time to get them fired up so they can finish the regular season strong.
