A last-ditch effort for the Warriors to upend the Houston Rockets on Sunday night fell just short when Steph Curry missed a heavily contested 3-point attempt before the final buzzer.
Golden State fell to 36-42 on the season after the 117-116 defeat. Following the miss, however, attention shifted to Draymond Green and Brandin Podziemski, as it was apparent on the NBC broadcast that there was a miscommunication.
On Monday, Podziemski spoke with reporters following the Warriors’ practice and gave his perspective of the play.
“I saw Dray run up there to set a screen, and they switched,” Podziemski said. “But then they kind of hit him and in my mind, I’m like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to run up there with [Alperen] Şengün just because I have Şengün on me to bring another guy into his air space.’ So I just kind of left it be where it was.”
It seemed from the video above that Green waved for Podziemski to follow him for a double screen to set up a mismatch with Şengün on Curry, but Podziemski says he felt setting a screen would have messed up spacing on the floor.
“I think the spacing is the hardest part to judge in those close-quarter moments, but we all know we wanted Şengün in it, but as soon as I saw Dray go screen, I’m like, ‘I’m not going to bring a third guy into the equation,’” Podziemski said.
“In those low-clock moments, you want to give your best players as much space as they can to kind of have either direction to go and just make a play one way or the other and not crowd them with bodies.”
While Curry has had his fair share of contested 3-pointers to close games during his legendary career, the play definitely seemed like it didn’t get the matchup result that the Warriors had wanted.
With four games left in the regular season, Golden State will want to tighten all the loose ends up as they prepare to make some noise in the NBA play-in tournament and hopefully reach the playoffs.
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