NBA junkies loved it last night when the TNT broadcast caught the audio of some coaching from Steve Kerr to Kevin Durant.
During the first half of Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets, Kerr dropped some wisdom Durant's way by telling him a story about Michael Jordan in the playoffs he had heard from Phil Jackson.
To quickly sum up, it was about how Jackson implored Jordan to trust his teammates, namely role players like John Paxson who “would be open.” The message Kerr was trying to relay to Durant was clear, for KD to do the same and make plays for others instead of just looking to score on his own.
Durant didn't necessarily listen and in fact it looks the Warriors may not have been too happy with the footage being released, possibly due to the former fact.
The Warriors all said the right things after the game. Kerr said he liked the team’s ball movement. Draymond Green said Golden State “figured something out” on the offensive end. Stephen Curry harped on the team’s 16 turnovers — which has always been Golden State’s Achilles’ heel during its run the past four seasons.
But there’s a reason the original tweet that TNT’s account put out about Durant talking to Kerr was deleted. Somewhere, with someone, it struck a nerve.
The last tidbit is pretty interesting, suggesting that the Warriors organization requested the footage get taken down. It's typically members of the organization that approve audio like the one captured between Kerr and Durant. So after that, there was potentially regret due to Durant's performance?
We won't know exactly what happened but it doesn't matter much. Durant should heed Kerr's advice on that topic since it's an all-around performance needed from KD for the Warriors to give the Rockets everything they need to extend this series.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Game 6.
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