Why Steph was visibly mad after ‘dead possession' vs. Pacers

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Steph Curry doesn't get upset with his Warriors teammates very often, so when his frustrations boil over during a game, it's noteworthy.

That was the case during the Warriors' stunning 121-117 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers at Chase Center on Thursday night.

During the fourth quarter, with the Warriors trailing 98-96, Curry called a play, passed to Kevon Looney above the top of the arc and started to run to the left corner, where Gary Payton II was being defended. It appeared Curry was pointing for Payton to vacate the location and slide up towards the top of the arc. Payton didn't appear to go where Curry wanted.

Looney eventually handed the ball off to Klay Thompson who drew the double team and attempted to pass back to a rolling Looney. The pass was deflected and the Pacers forced the turnover. Indiana forward Isaiah Jackson missed a layup, but former Warriors forward Justin Holiday tipped in the rebound to give the Pacers a four-point lead.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr immediately called a timeout and Curry fired the basketball off the stanchion. Then he could be seen angrily talking to Payton and Andrew Wiggins as they walked back to the bench.

Following the loss to the Pacers, Curry was asked about what happened by The Athletic's Anthony Slater during his postgame press conference.

"That's execution, like coach talks about, or whatever his quote was," Curry said. "Our execution on simple stuff that we know is our bread and butter, and plays we run every time, we didn't execute well, so it was a dead possession where that's a very pivotal part of the game where you can go on a run for two, three minutes, get the crowd into it, get a couple stops.

"We came down, I called a play, we didn't execute it well, had an empty possession. I think they scored and we called timeout. That's where us as players have to keep each other accountable to the little things we can control. You can't control making or missing shots, but you can control execution and kind of the sign of where we were at tonight."

Curry scored a game-high 39 points, but it wasn't enough to propel the Warriors past the injury-ravaged Pacers, who were missing four of their five top scorers.

RELATED: Steph right in betting on Klay finding his shot

Curry and the Warriors will get a chance to see if the execution has improved Friday night against the Houston Rockets on the second night of a home back-to-back.

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