Adelaide led by as much as 32 points in the third term, but conceded eight goals in the second half to allow Fremantle within four points of snatching the lead.
The Crows, keen to arrest the momentum, went into shutdown mode for close to five minutes - playing tempo football to keep the ball from Fremantle's reach.
Though the crowd jeered the tactic, Craig said it could have been the difference between winning and losing.
"We felt that we’d lost the momentum of the game," he said. "We had it, then we lost it again and Fremantle was coming at us. We’ve been criticised in the past for losing close games.
"To keep hold of the ball for four-and-a half minutes requires, from our playing group, a lot of nerve because you’ve got the pressure of trying to keep possession and the pressure of the reaction of the crowd.
"I understand why our supporters react like that, but I’m trying to educate them as to why we do it [tempo football]. It’s a really important experience for our younger group to go through, to keep their nerve and be able to win a game, which quite possibly if we hadn’t gone that way, may have been lost."
Craig, who has encouraged his team to be more attacking this season, explained his decision to go defensive in the last term.
"We felt, as a group, that we were in attack mode and we weren’t icing anything. It was melting," he said.
"That sort of attack wasn’t going to win the game for us. We made a very conscious decision as a club to go the other way and I thought it was a great four-and-a-half minutes for us.
"It’s a difficult exercise and our supporters probably don’t understand how difficult it is to keep possession for that amount of time, particularly with the inexperienced group that we’ve got.
"Whilst there is some criticism of it, what I’m saying to our supporters is that I was really pleased with the way the players did that and I think it won us the game.
"Hopefully we don’t see it [tempo football] again for the year, but it’s a tool because sides get criticised for losing big leads, getting swamped and people say, ‘Well, why didn’t you do something?'"
Adelaide meets Carlton at the MCG next Saturday.
