At least the Golden State Warriors' biggest early-season problems weren't the driving force behind their latest loss away from the friendly confines of Chase Center, right? The defending champs fell to the Miami Heat 116-109 at FTX Arena on Tuesday, crumbling in crunch-time of a competitive, back-and-forth affair between two struggling teams that desperately needed a win.
A third straight defeat pushes Golden State to 3-5 on the regular season, still searching for its first victory away from home entering a back-to-back against the Orlando Magic and surging New Orleans Pelicans that begins on Thursday.
Steve Kerr expressed optimism on the postgame podium regardless, encouraged by an all-around effort that was clearly good enough to win against another team with deep postseason aspirations. What most drew his ire wasn't even the Warriors' whopping 20 turnovers, but a strictly enforced point of emphasis from the officiating crew that resulted in Jordan Poole being called for three palming violations.
Kerr's main frustration wasn't about whether those whistles for a discontinued dribble were correct, though. What really irked him is that the league sent out an email about referees homing in on palming on Tuesday, as Golden State was preparing for action against Miami.
“I guess there was an email that went out today, and honestly I didn't check my email. Like, we got a game today! I'm not looking at emails,” Kerr said. “So I was shocked because basically the whole league does that. They've been doing it ever since Allen Iverson convinced the referees that it wasn't a carry. It is a carry! What Jordan does is a carry. But the whole league's been doin' it, so I guess I gotta start checking my email on gamedays.”
Poole wasn't the only one whistled for palming in the game. Miami was called for the violation, too. Still, that losing ratio for Poole and the Warriors didn't set well with Draymond Green.
“I love Kyle [Lowry], I love Jimmy [Butler]. They're great. But they're not not carrying the whole game,” he said. “So if we only got one—and I think it was on Caleb Martin or one of those guys in front of our bench—if there's only one, it can't be too much of a point of emphasis. So, I'd love to see it continue being called.”
It was forgettable night for Poole overall, too. He labored to nine points on 3-of-10 shooting and went just 1-of-7 from three, forcing up a couple tough long-range looks in the third quarter as Miami made a run with Golden State's starting unit on the bench. Poole finished the game with a plus-minus of -23, a team-worst.
As Green indicated, it remains to be seen if officials will continue enforcing palming so strictly going forward. While it's been called intermittently in the season's early going, whistles for a suspended dribble would be making daily headlines if they were coming at the rate they did against Poole on Tuesday.
Keep an eye on that going forward, obviously but Kerr isn't holding his breath. Standing up from the dais, his media availability over, the decades-long league veteran cast sarcastic doubt on palming being a real point of emphasis throughout the duration of 2022-23.
“I'm looking forward also to next week's email where they announce they're gonna start calling traveling, also, cause that's for sure coming,” Kerr quipped. “If they're gonna fix palming, they're for sure gonna fix traveling. No doubt.”
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