“You have to have that moment of truth, moment of reckoning” – Kerr reflects on the pivotal crossroads Warriors encountered in 2015 playoffs originally appeared on Basketball Network.
The 2014-15 season saw the Golden State Warriors lead a charmed life. Despite having a first-time head coach, Steve Kerr, at the helm of the team, the Dubs ran roughshod over the competition, winning 67 regular-season games.
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Along the way, numerous players collected individual accolades: Steph Curry won the Most Valuable Player award, Klay Thompson was named an All-Star and earned a spot on the All-NBA Team, and Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut were named to the All-Defensive Teams.
However, as it always does, the playoffs gave the Warriors a harsh dose of reality. Despite being the top seed in the Western Conference, the Warriors were pushed to the edge by the gritty Memphis Grizzlies. After losing Games 2 and 3, Golden State had a choice to make: were they going to fold under the pressure or rise to the occasion?
A moment of truth
At that point, many fans and pundits were skeptical of the Warriors’ chances of winning it all since they believed a team that relied on jumpers wouldn’t be able to succeed in the rough-and-tumble playoffs. After the Game 3 loss, the noise from all the naysayers became louder; no stranger to these situations dating back to his playing days with the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs, Kerr knew an adjustment was in order.
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“Every team that eventually breaks through, you have to have that moment of truth, moment of reckoning, whatever you want to call it,” the silver-haired mentor said. “And that’s what we had when they beat us up in Game 3. Everybody was calling us soft and tweeting about us and saying, jump-shooting teams don’t win all that stuff.”
For all intents and purposes, the Warriors were not a soft team. It just so happened that the Grizzlies were a rugged team that relished slowing the game down and controlling the pace with their post-oriented attack. Essentially, the Warriors found themselves stuck in the mud, unable to get their high-octane offense going.
Warriors assistant coach Ron Adams had earlier noted to Kerr that it may be prudent to switch Bogut onto Grizzlies wingman Tony Allen — a virtual non-threat on offense. In Game 4, Steve gave the green light on that move.
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“We were maybe a game late in our adjustment to put Bogut on Tony Allen. Ron Adams had suggested it on the flight to Memphis when it was 1-1. But we agreed it was pretty extreme. And then we got blown out,” Kerr expressed. “It’s like, ‘Oh s–t, we better do that.'”
Grizz never recovered
Bogut being assigned to defend Allen provided him a lot of leeway to roam the paint and act as a rim protector, while also allowing him to conserve energy on defense by not having to guard one of the Grizzlies’ post prolific players, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. This significantly improved their defense, which eventually powered their offense, leading to dominant victories in the series’ last three games (they won by an average of 16.7 points).
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“I just let Allen shoot the ball, really, and that’s not his thing. That basically screwed up their spacing, because they had four bodies already running around paint with the Gasol and Randolph, whoever’s guarding them,” Bogs said. “And then you’ve got me running around not guarding anyone. That just completely screwed up their offense, and they just couldn’t find a rhythm.”
More than anything, the Warriors’ unique defensive adjustment rendered Allen useless. After averaging 10.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists and an impressive 3.7 steals per game in the series’ first three games, the Grindfather wound up playing only 21 minutes in Games 5 and 6, averaging 3.0 points and 2.5 rebounds. He would not play in Game 6 because of a hamstring injury.
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“What that did, and what people don’t realize, is it got Tony out of their lineup. He says he had a hamstring injury,”Bogut added. “I think he was going to be out of lineup anyway because their offense was so bad.”
While the Warriors would again encounter rough waters in the NBA Finals against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, they were ready for that moment. Unfazed by what they went through in the second round, they did what they had to do and finished the job to bring the Larry O’Brien Trophy back to the Bay Area.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 17, 2025, where it first appeared.