three straight flopping calls late in Tuesday night\u2019s Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers game<\/a>. Both veteran coaches had their own take on what the league should do.<\/p>\n\u201cI think everybody\u2019s trying to figure out what\u2019s a flop, what\u2019s not,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cBecause we feel like we\u2019ve had some illegal screens, guys who have taken a dive, and we\u2019ve sent them into the league. We\u2019re discussing that. We\u2019re having internal discussions, what\u2019s what. I think everybody has to figure it out. The league made it a point of emphasis, but it seems to be only certain actions. So, we have to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finch believes the focus should be on stopping offensive players from flopping.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was all for the league cleaning up flopping when I heard they were going to do it,\u201d Finch said. \u201cUnfortunately, I think the league has their own definition of what a flop is, which is needed but confusing when you feel like when you see a flop (and) everyone kind of knows what it is. It doesn\u2019t need to be overly explained. I think where they got it wrong is all these flops they\u2019re calling on the defense, and that\u2019s not what the people want out of the game. They want the flops on the offensive players out of the game. The league was very intentional about saying the fans didn\u2019t want to see flopping, but that\u2019s not the flopping that \u2026 they don\u2019t care if a defender spills down and shouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they care (about) is that the offensive players are baiting the game and falling down and getting unnecessary free throws. That\u2019s what they care about because that\u2019s not really in the spirit of why everyone wants to tune in and watch. So, I feel like all these flops on the defense, at the moment they\u2019re probably just overemphasizing. But it\u2019s the ones on the offense that I think have to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerr said he sent clips to the league office early in the season on various calls, but wanted to keep those conversations \u201cprivate.\u201d He said that flopping as a whole should be \u201cbanished.\u201d Kerr was complimentary about the job NBA officials largely do on a night-to-night basis, but was consistent in his messaging on getting \u201cplayer grifting\u201d out of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to a good friend in the league who said, in training camp, they had the players call their own fouls,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cBecause they were just tired of all the grifting. And when you have the players call their own fouls, they don\u2019t flop. It\u2019s just basketball. And I\u2019m not saying that\u2019s the answer. I think our officials do a great job, and I think they work their butts off. It\u2019s such a hard job. So I\u2019m not complaining about the officiating. What I\u2019m saying is we need to stay ahead of all the player grifting. Easier said than done, I get it, but we\u2019ve consistently been behind here a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Kerr discussed ways to get flopping out of the game, he was asked about another league issue he\u2019s opined on multiple times this year: the length of the league schedule. Kerr, a longtime proponent of cutting games to preserve player health, was asked for his opinion after a long list of players were already missing games because of soft-tissue injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to sit here and say four games into the season that guys are getting injured because we have too many games,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cI don\u2019t know that (the schedule) is tied to injuries. I do know the speed and pace at which the game is played is definitely making the length of the season an issue. That\u2019s always been my talking point. But I can\u2019t sit here a week into the season and really justifiably bring up the length of the season as it relates to what we\u2019ve seen so far.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has never been afraid to share his opinion on topics…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2243,11951,355,99],"class_list":["post-898149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}