Kerr Blasts 'Flopping' After Waved-Off Curry Three Seals Warriors' Collapse

TL;DR: Steve Kerr accused the Memphis Grizzlies of flopping and called the deciding illegal-screen call shocking after Stephen Curry’s late three-pointer was waved off in Golden State’s 111-108 home loss on Friday. The Warriors led by 12 with under four minutes left before Memphis closed on a 17-0 run. Cameron Boozer’s go-ahead basket put Memphis up 108-106, Curry’s answer was erased when Draymond Green was called for his third illegal screen of the game, and Kerr’s technical for arguing ended Golden State’s last chance. The Warriors are 0-2 for the first time since 2020-21.

The last twenty seconds of this game contain three separate stories, and Kerr managed to tell all three at once. There is the call that erased Curry’s shot. There is the technical that ended the game. And there is the accusation Kerr made after both, that the Grizzlies spent the night flopping and the referees bought it. Any one of those would be a talking point. Together, they turned a home opener into a referendum on how this game is officiated.

What happened in the final seconds?

Memphis took the lead first. Cameron Boozer’s spinning shot in the lane over Brandin Podziemski gave the Grizzlies a 108-106 lead with about 20 seconds to play, the New York Post reports. It was the last of Boozer’s 25 points, to go with 13 rebounds and six assists, in a rookie performance that outshone fellow first-year Yaxel Lendeborg in their first NBA meeting.

Golden State answered immediately, or thought it had. Stephen Curry hit a fadeaway three on the next trip, but the basket was waved off after Draymond Green was called for an illegal screen, USA Today reports. It was Green’s third illegal screen of the game, the New York Post reports. Kerr erupted on the sideline, argued the call, and was assessed a technical foul as the Grizzlies sealed the deal, USA Today reports. Bleacher Report puts the call at 12.8 seconds remaining, with the technical giving Memphis a free throw and possession, after which former Warrior Ty Jerome drove uncontested for the layup that finished his game-high 28-point night.

That sequence is why this game will be remembered for a whistle rather than a comeback. Memphis deserved credit for the 17-0 run that got them there. But the final possession was decided by an official’s judgment about a screen, and then by a coach’s reaction to that judgment, and both decisions are now part of the story.

What did Kerr actually say?

He went after the officiating on two fronts at once. First, the volume of calls: “We probably had six illegal screens tonight,” Kerr said, USA Today reports. “Those were really tough because the flopping that was happening on every single one. It looked like guys were going down like they’d been hit by a car or something. It’s difficult when you’re setting a screen and you see that and the refs are calling it over and over.”

Second, the specific call: Kerr called it “shocking,” the New York Post reports. Bleacher Report quotes his fuller version of the flopping charge: “All of the flopping that was going on, every time somebody ran into a screen, they just went down, and the refs bought into it.”

There is a tension in Kerr’s argument that he did not resolve, and it is worth stating plainly. If the Grizzlies were flopping on every screen, then six illegal-screen calls is a lot of whistles to give to flops. But Green was called three times himself, and the last one erased a made three-pointer in a two-point game. Kerr’s case is not that screens should never be called. It is that the standard on Friday night rewarded falling down, and that the biggest call of the game followed that pattern. Whether the league agrees will show up in whether Kerr hears anything further about the remarks.

How did a 12-point lead disappear?

The same way leads usually disappear in this building: slowly, then all at once. Podziemski’s contested layup put Golden State up 11 with 5:19 to play, and De’Anthony Melton drained a three 96 seconds later to stretch it to a dozen with under four minutes left, the New York Post reports. Then Memphis scored 17 unanswered points, Bleacher Report reports, while Golden State missed its final nine attempts from the field.

Kerr described the collapse as an avalanche of small things. “I think like eight different things had to happen,” he said, the New York Post reports. “I think if any one of those eight doesn’t happen, we win the game. It was just an avalanche.” A few possessions earlier, Podziemski and Melton had collided chasing a loose ball Podziemski poked free, and the ball ended up with a Memphis player. Curry fouled a three-point shooter. The Warriors gave Jerome an open look. None of those moments alone loses a game. All of them together, plus the waved-off three, do.

What did Curry say?

He did not hide behind the officiating. “Missed a bunch of shots,” Curry said, USA Today reports. “Pretty good possessions for the most part, obviously there was a lot of 3s. Ball bounced their way, a couple of tough calls, a couple of tough offensive rebounds. I fouled a 3-point shooter. Breakdown down the stretch to give Ty [Jerome] an open look.” Then the line that gave the New York Post its headline: “So, pretty much everything went wrong. It’s a tough pill to swallow considering we played really solid, especially in that second half, to give ourselves a lead and be in control of the game for as long as we did.”

Curry finished with 24 points on 5-of-15 shooting, making all 11 of his free throws, USA Today reports. Podziemski, starting after missing the season opener with a sore back, took the most shots on the team with 17 and matched Lendeborg with 18 points, the New York Post reports. The Warriors had fought back from 13 down in the first half and outscored Memphis 34-24 in the third quarter, USA Today reports. That is what makes the ending sting in the way Curry described: this was not a game they never had. It was a game they had, with four minutes left, in their home opener.

Why does 0-2 matter this early?

Because of the company it keeps and the absences behind it. The Warriors are 0-2 for the first time since 2020-21, the New York Post reports, after a 127-105 opening-night loss to the Lakers. Bleacher Report notes they are without the injured Jimmy Butler and the ill Kristaps Porzingis, which is the context Kerr’s critics will point to and his defenders will point past. A team missing two starters can lose two games without it meaning very much. A team that loses the second one on a waved-off three and a technical will still spend the weekend arguing about the whistle.

The Warriors’ season has already produced its share of off-court noise, from the uncertainty over where Porzingis actually is to the question of whether Lendeborg was spooked guarding Doncic, the ankle scare that had Curry expected to play the opener and Dalen Terry’s 43-minute preseason night on an Exhibit 10 deal. Friday’s game added an on-court controversy to that list, and it is the kind that follows a team: every illegal screen called against Golden State for the next month will now be watched through the lens of Kerr’s flopping charge.

What happens next?

Phoenix, on Saturday, without the two leading scorers. Curry said he will probably not suit up against the Suns in the second half of the first back-to-back of the season as the team manages his workload, the New York Post reports. Podziemski also said he will sit out. That leaves Golden State chasing its first win shorthanded, with Kerr’s comments about the officials still fresh, and with the possibility of a league response hanging over the weekend. Kerr himself tried to sound unbothered at the end. “There’s 80 [more] games. We’ve lost a couple. We’ll bounce back,” he said. The standings will give him 80 chances to prove it. The film of the last twenty seconds on Friday will be harder to move on from.