NBA Reveals Result of Investigation into Doug Christie, Kings' Decision to Foul Warriors' Seth Curry

The NBA found that Sacramento Kings head coach Doug Christie made an honest mistake in Tuesday's loss to the Golden State Warriors.

After investigating Christie for intentionally fouling Warriors guard Seth Curry while leading late in the fourth quarter, the league determined that Christie wrongly thought that Golden State wasn't in the penalty at the time.

"The league's investigation determined that Christie mistakenly believed that the Warriors were not in the penalty and therefore instructed his team to foul in an attempt to stop the clock and utilize one of the team's remaining timeouts," the NBA's statement said. "The investigation found that Christie made no intentional effort to give the Warriors a shooting foul, or to cause the Kings to lose the game."

The Kings fell to 21-59 with their loss to the Warriors, keeping pace for a high pick in the NBA draft lottery after a recent surge in which they went 7-9 over a 16-game span. The league's emphasis on tanking this year unsurprisingly raised some eyebrows over the situation.

"I saw a team tonight foul Seth Curry with three minutes to go for no reason," Warriors veteran forward Draymond Green said after the game, per ESPN's Anthony Slater. "I get fined when I do wrong. Fine the hell out of people."

Christie had previously addressed the notion of tanking directly and declared that he would never submit to that.

"Tanking is the last thing [I'd do]," he said after a recent win over the Utah Jazz. "I respect the game too much. These young men, in my opinion, when you do things like that, it hurts them."

The NBA is set to hold a Board of Governors meeting on May 28 to vote on anti-tanking rule change proposals. The goal is to have the new rules in place ahead of the NBA draft this summer.

The Kings and Warriors will face each other once again on Friday, so Christie will surely be hoping to avoid another faux pas.