After the Golden State loss to Denver on Christmas Day, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr expressed his frustration with the game.
Kerr’s Warriors were able to hold two-time MVP big man Nikola Jokic to shoot just 4-of-12 from the field in the match. Jokic, however, was a perfect 18-of-18 from the free throw line.
Denver won the battle at the charity stripe, shooting 26-of-32 on those trips while Golden State was 20-of-23. As he reflected on the experience, Kerr was clearly not happy
"If I were a fan, I wouldn't have wanted to watch the second half of that game. It was disgusting."
Steve Kerr believes the NBA has legislated defense out of the game pic.twitter.com/KdSwQByhTh
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) December 25, 2023
Here is what Kerr told reporters about what he saw:
“I have no problem with the officials themselves. All across the league, we have really good officials. I have a problem with the way we are legislating defense out of the game. That’s what we are doing in the NBA. The way we’re teaching the officials, we’re just enabling to B.S. their way to the foul line. If I were a fan, I wouldn’t have wanted to watch the second half of that game. It was disgusting. It was just baiting refs into calls. But the refs have to make those calls because that’s how they’re taught.”
Jokic, indeed, is one of the best in the league at drawing fouls.
He has drawn non-shooting fouls on 4.1 percent of team plays this season, per Cleaning the Glass. That ranks in the 98th percentile among all big men. Jokic has ranked in the 97th percentile or better in each of his NBA seasons since 2017-18.
But despite the rant by Kerr, it’s worth noting that Jokic is historically not one of the leaders in actually getting to the free-throw line.
