The Los Angeles Lakers rallied in a big way in the fourth quarter of Game 4 against the Golden State Warriors and now find themselves just one win away from the Western Conference Finals. The offense got a huge spark from Lonnie Walker IV and the defense was suffocating, being led by Anthony Davis and Dennis Schroder.
Thanks to that great effort, the Lakers were able to draw a couple of charge calls on illegal screens in the final period and this didn’t sit well with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. After the game, Kerr said he believed the Lakers were being rewarded for blatant flops. While he acknowledged the need for players to sometimes sell certain calls, Kerr felt the referees should be better at recognizing players taking obvious dives.
Schroder didn’t take kindly to those comments by Kerr, however. Schroder appeared on a live stream with Adan Ross and defended the Lakers, via Legend YouTube:
“Steve Kerr went on the media and he said that they didn’t get no calls, we flopped all game, they didn’t get no free throws. But if you shoot 53 threes, how are you gonna get to the free throw line? I didn’t really feel that one, his comments on that and that we’re flopping and doing all those things. At the end of the day if they’re setting the illegal screens, sometimes you gotta show them that they’re moving on the screen. If you don’t do it, they’re not gonna call it.”
As much as everyone hates the idea of flopping, Schroder is right in that often times players exaggerate the contact in order to get the attention of the officials. If a player doesn’t do that, referees often times won’t call anything, putting the defense at a disadvantage.
The question in this instance is whether or not those were actually illegal screens. Kerr believes they were legal plays that were called fouls because of the Lakers players going down, but Schroder believes it was just the Lakers bringing attention to illegal actions.
It seems as if players are still moving on most screens these days and with flopping basically becoming an accepted part of the game, it makes the referees job that much more difficult to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t.
Dennis Schroder ‘super proud’ of Lonnie Walker IV’s performance in Game 4 for Lakers
One of those illegal screen calls was drawn by the Lakers’ hero of the night in Lonnie Walker IV, though most of the attention for him focused on his offense and rightfully so. Walker scored all 15 of his points in the fourth quarter of the win and Dennis Schroder was extremely proud of his teammate after the game.
“And Lonnie Walker, staying ready. Didn’t play the second half of the season too much. Kept working,” Schroder said after the win. “Every single time I came to practice I seen him work. And to come in a playoff game and bring that energy and scoring at the end, it’s just a true professional.”
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