The Warriors may have dropped Game 1 of their first-round series against the Kings 126-123 Saturday night at the Golden 1 Center, but coach Steve Kerr is confident about where his team stands in the series.
"To come out here, [have a] 10-point lead in the second half. We did plenty of good things. Had a chance to win at the end. I think we're in a pretty good place. We just couldn't complete the game tonight. [It's a] seven-game series, so we'll bounce back," Kerr said postgame.
The difference in tonight's game? The Warriors lack of defensive rebounding, as Sacramento scored 21 second-chance points as a result of their 17 offensive rebounds.
Kerr acknowledged that his team's failure to collect defensive rebounds ultimately led to their demise in Game 1, not the team's poor shot selection in the second half.
"We took some bad ones (shots), but I didn't think shot selection was the problem. We're always going to be aggressive. And sometimes we're going to take some quick ones, that's a part of who we are. And that's okay. We've got some great shooters and I trust those guys," Kerr said. "But the issue was the offensive boards. You had 17 of them. [And] a lot of them [happened] in the second half when we had built that 10-point lead. And that allowed their shooters to get open. Late third they made their run. They got several buckets off of offensive boards, and that really hurt our momentum."
Game 2 is set for Monday at 6:30 PT.
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