Warriors’ Draymond Green gets 2 T’s, first ejection of season،
SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is no stranger to controversial fouls or ejections. And the Warriors’ 118-110 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers was added to the list.
Green was ejected in the third quarter of Saturday night’s game after committing two technical fouls — the second coming after a review several minutes after the play and an apparent foul occurred.
“I’m the same person that was suspended from the NBA Finals for egregious fouls that were all called out after the game,” Green told ESPN after the loss. “Nothing surprises me.”
It was Green’s first ejection of the season and the 17th of his career (including regular season and playoffs), the most among active players.
With 6:23 left in the third quarter and the Warriors trailing by 10, Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell apparently charged at Green and intentionally pushed him. On the previous play, Green stripped Mitchell of the ball as both fell to the ground.
After Mitchell’s retaliatory push, Green stood in Mitchell’s face as a referee attempted to intervene. The two were separated but continued to argue while officials went to review the play to see if Mitchell’s foul should be considered egregious. They continued to go back and forth during the review, with team security keeping a hand on Green at all times.
The referees ruled that Mitchell’s push was a common foul, but found that Green made contact with the Cleveland guard after stripping him of the ball and giving him a technical foul.
“I’ve never heard of this rule, but apparently you can retroactively overturn a technical problem on two previous plays upon review,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “There are a lot of pieces I wish I could go back to three years ago. It was weird.”
It was Green’s second T of the night. The first came in the first quarter after an argument with a referee. Green finished with eight points on 3-of-4 shooting (including 2-of-3 3-pointers), five rebounds and four assists.
As Green left the field, he left some parting words for his team.
“If he gets kicked out of the game, he knows we have to respond,” the Warriors’ Kevon Looney said. “[He told us] to keep the energy and not give up.”
When Green was ejected, the Warriors were in the middle of their best stretch of the night — a classic third-quarter barrage of Golden State. After losing the second quarter by 17 points, the Warriors outscored Cleveland 31-16 in the third. They finished the period on a 16-7 run immediately after Green was ejected.
“It was more emotion. It was more force,” Kerr said of his team’s third-quarter performance. “It was the first time all season that the first unit looked good. That’s because of the energy they all brought.
“That’s what led to this great third quarter.”
The Warriors’ starting lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Green and Looney played 12 minutes together and outscored the Cavaliers by six points. It was the first time the starters had a positive plus-minus in a game this season.
Entering Saturday’s contest, the group was plus-minus-23 in 67 minutes. Last season, this starting lineup had a net efficiency of plus-21.9, the best of any five-player lineup that played more than 100 minutes together.
“It’s a small sample, but [we’re] “We’re starting to establish a pattern of starting slowly, and that’s a problem we need to correct,” Curry said. “But we’re competitors…limiting them to 16 in the third shows, we have it in us. We just have to do it, execute and find a better advantage to start games.
Outside of the third quarter, the Warriors lacked energy. They committed a record 20 turnovers, totaling 32 Cleveland points, and allowed the Cavs to attempt 43 free throws.
The Warriors shot 41.1% from the field and 34.2% from 3, with Curry leading all scoring with 30 points on 9-of-24 shooting.
Golden State’s second leading scorer was Thompson with 14 points, but his overall performance was not good. Thompson called it “perhaps my worst performance of this young season.”
“We were feeling lazy tonight,” Kerr said. “This team is putting a lot of pressure on us. It felt like we were back to our foul habits. We were a little better at the start, but it felt like last year. It’s just that we were committing way too much “It’s hard to get into an offensive rhythm when the other team is shooting free throws every time.”
The Warriors blamed Cleveland’s defense for most of their problems, but they realized they had to actively work to bounce back from their third loss in a week, especially as they continue the early portions of their game at six-game homestand.
“Just because we’re at home doesn’t mean you have to just show up and win,” Curry said. “We usually respond well to this type of feeling when you lose: understanding what it takes to execute the details of our game plan against a certain team. That will be the challenge tomorrow, especially for the starting unit off to a good start.”
