Why Jordan Poole’s shot that led to Stephen Curry’s ejection in Warriors-Grizzlies wasn’t that bad

Jordan Poole had himself an eventful 80 seconds to close the Warriors‘ wild win over Memphis on Wednesday night. After attempting a somewhat ill-advised 3-pointer that irked Stephen Curry to the point the Warriors star hurled his mouthpiece into the stands, which led to his being ejected, Poole redeemed himself by producing the game-winning layup off a baseline out-of-bounds play as Golden State escaped with a 122-120 victory. 

So the layup was cool. Steve Kerr said Draymond Green called for the play. Three Grizzlies followed Klay Thompson as he curled around to the strong-side corner, another example of the Splash Brothers’ gravity creating backdoor opportunities for teammates, and Poole made a great cut with Ziaire Williams positioned on his top side and the rim vacated. 

But what I want to talk about more is this supposed awful shot that Poole took prior to the game-winner. Curry clearly didn’t like it and Poole got spit-roasted for it on Twitter, but I’m here to tell you it wasn’t that bad of a shot. I might even go so far as to say it was a pretty good shot. 

So here’s the situation: Golden State was up by two, 120-118, with possession. There was a minute and a half to play. After Klay Thompson came up with a loose-ball offensive rebound off his own missed pull-up jumper, he passed it back out to Poole, who attempted a 3-pointer with 1:20 on the clock, which you can see below. 

Before the shot, you can see that Curry was clapping for Poole to give him the ball. Below is a good view of all that transpired from Curry’s point of view, concluding with the mouthpiece fastball that got him tossed. 

I know everyone is going to say, and is saying, that the smart play in this situation would’ve been to hold the ball and take some more time off the clock. But let’s do some math. After an offensive rebound, there isn’t another full 24 seconds put back on the shot clock. It only goes back to 14. So even if Golden State had milked the shot clock down to the last second, which likely would’ve resulted in a far worse shot than the one Poole took, Memphis still would’ve gotten the ball back with over a minute to play. 

If the game was within the final two possessions, or certainly the final possession, yeah, milk the clock. But the Warriors, with just a one-bucket lead and still time for at least two more Grizzlies possessions, needed to score on this trip more than they needed…