Steph Curry has a largely unblemished record when it comes to serious infractions.
The blemishes that do exist though are thanks to his mouthguard.
Curry was tossed for the third time in his career in the Warriors’ win over the Grizzlies on Wednesday. With just 1:14 left to play, a frustrated Curry fired his mouthpiece into the stands and promptly was ejected. Each one of his ejections to date have been because of incidents with his mouthguard.
By letter of the law, the incident was enforced correctly. Tossing any object towards the stands with force is grounds for an automatic ejection, and a mouthpiece is no exception.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told “Damon and Ratto” on Thursday that while Curry knows he shouldn’t do that, he wishes there was a little more latitude when it came to enforcing the rule.
“I didn’t see it. I was very confused as to what was happening because it was such a weird time to have an ejection and a technical. … It was just all of the sudden the whistle blows and Steph is gone. It was bizarre,” Kerr said. “But yeah, he knows he can’t throw the mouthpiece.
“I wish there was a little room maybe for reason to prevail. It’s not like he threw it at somebody, he threw it on the ground. You’d like for there to be a little wiggle room for the official to maybe give him a technical but not an ejection. But that was the call, that's what it was so our guys had to pick it up from there, and they did. They got it done without Steph, which is a pretty good accomplishment under those circumstances.”
Poole hit a game-winning layup just before the buzzer sounded to give the Warriors the 122-120 win. But the fact that they had to play the final 74 seconds without their star player because he was ejected over something fairly benign is, to borrow Kerr's word, bizarre.
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