Steve Kerr let his Warriors players coach themselves Monday night against the Suns for a simple reason: It's not that they weren't listening to him, they weren't even hearing words when he spoke to them.

It's a Charlie Brown analogy.

Kerr's explanation to reporters (via The Athletic):

“I have to coach my team. I told (Suns coach Jay Triano) afterward, 'People may make a big deal of it. It had nothing to do with me being disrespectful. It had to do with me trying to reach my team.' I have not reached them for the last month. They’re tired of my voice. I’M tired of my voice. It’s been a long haul these last three years. I wasn’t reaching them, and we thought it was probably a good night to pull a trick out of the hat and do something different.

"I thought the players responded very well. I just feel like when we are focused, we we are really tough to beat and tonight we were focused. Just having to count on each other and not having to hear my voice — and this sort of sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher, parents, whoever’s voice that is — at this point, that’s who I sounded like to them. They needed a different voice.”

The players were in charge of everything from shootaround Monday morning to the game that night as they routed a woeful Suns team at home, 129-83.

That included plotting strategy during timeouts, with minimal input from Kerr. Although, it turns out the defending NBA champs didn't need to strategize much after they raced to a 17-point halftime lead.

"I'd call it an experiment," Stephen Curry told reporters afterward (via ESPN).

“I thought it was great,” GM Bob Myers said (via NBC Sports Bay Area). “That’s easy to say now that we won.”

“It was collective effort,” Curry said. “We were just trying to stay locked in and enjoy the process of getting focused and knowing our sets, being thoughtful about what lineups are out there, what we’re trying to accomplish and execute.”

Memo to Curry, by the way: Don't give up your regular job. 

He made the most glaring coaching gaffe of the evening, taking too long to draw up a play to start the third quarter, resulting in a delay-of-game warning.

“I was horrible, actually,” he said. “I thought about a play and then forgot the second option and had two guys in the wrong place on the board.”

There were critics of the move, including Suns guard Troy Daniels ("It's disrespectful") and forward Jared Dudley. For his part, Triano said he had no problem with Kerr's move; in fact, he said, he didn't even notice. 

Daniels was clearly bothered by it, however, and threw shade at Kerr in response.

"I don't think it's hard to coach those guys, though," Daniels told reporters (per azcentral.com). "I think anybody can do it."

Dudley voiced his displeasure to ESPN: "It shows a lack of respect for an opponent, and maybe right now we don't deserve respect. When you keep getting beat by 40, teams won't respect you. But it's up to us to change that."

Suns guard Devin Booker told ESPN he "liked the move personally," but he also noted: "(I)f he didn't have four All-Stars, I don't think he'd be doing that."