In the final minute of the first half Sunday, Draymond Jamal Green found himself precisely where he is most of the time: right in the midst of a controversy of his own making.
Moments earlier, he’d fallen into, then onto, Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who’d just launched a three-pointer before Green fouled him on a contest. Perhaps taking issue with Brown kicking out his left leg beforehand, Green laid his legs on top of the fallen Brown’s upper body. As Brown prepared to sit back up, Green lightly shoved him in the back, leading Brown to then stand over Green. The forwards got in each other’s faces, prompting official Zach Zarba, Marcus Smart and Jayson Tatum all to clog the path between Green and Brown to make sure things didn’t escalate. Brown later said he was frustrated by what he described as Green trying “to pull my pants down” in the ruckus.
The incident itself likely wouldn’t have been noteworthy aside from the fact that it happened after Green had already drawn a technical foul in the early stages of the game. So as the dust settled with this instance, referees reviewed what happened to see what punishment, if any, should be doled out as a result of the tie-up. It was a bit awkward, because nearly everyone from the announcers on the broadcast, to former official Steve Javie in Secaucus, N.J., to fans on Twitter, could acknowledge that the play normally would have resulted in a double technical foul. Yet most agreed—and referees confirmed—that there’d be no such call here, in part because Green already had the earlier technical, meaning another would have him ejected.
Darren Yamashita/USA TODAY Sports
Green essentially said as much himself. “I’ve earned deferential treatment. I enjoy that. I embrace that,” he said in an interview with ESPN’s Michael Eaves, adding that he wasn’t ever concerned he’d land a second technical over the dust-up.
I don’t want to see the Finals or any other meaningful game undermined by a ticky-tack ejection for a key player. But the scenario, and Green’s general view that he’s earned deferential treatment, does beg the question: If Green—who drew 14 regular-season technicals in just 46 games played—knows it would require something egregious to take the step of tossing him from a game, doesn’t it clearly benefit the Warriors to have him playing with such an edge, more or less daring the refs to oust him?
Make no mistake: Green has an abundance of practice as a habitual line-stepper. Each season, the NBA stipulates players will be suspended after tallying 16 technical fouls during the campaign. And every season, like clockwork, Green approaches that number, but usually manages to avoid reaching it. Thirteen in the 2015–16 season, 15 in the ’16-17 season, 15 in the ’17-–8 season, 16—and a suspension—during the ’18–19 season, and 14 each of the last three seasons, including this one, in which he had a 15th tech rescinded by the league.
He’s been burned once before on the biggest stage, obviously. Back in the 2016 Finals, Green drew a flagrant and automatic suspension for getting tangled with LeBron James in the late stages of Game 4, a punishment that stemmed from receiving too many flagrants. The ruling was costly: Aside from losing Game 5, in which Green was suspended, Golden State also dropped Games 6 and 7, becoming the first team to ever falter in a Finals series after jumping out to a 3–1 series advantage. (Shortly afterward, Green texted with Kevin Durant about joining Golden State, which added the superstar and then won the next two titles.)
“I think LeBron coaxed me into that,” Green said on J.J. Redick’s podcast, The Old Man and the Three. “And I know for sure today he couldn’t coax me into that. (For Brown’s part, he said he wasn’t aware that Green already had a technical Sunday.)
Despite standing just 6'6", Draymond is among the best defenders of his generation—someone who can adequately protect the rim while also switching onto wings, or guard them straight up, as he did with Brown on Sunday. He’s a fantastic passer and playmaker, even without the sort of pinpoint jumper his teammates often possess. He’s one of the game’s best screeners, and he understands better than anyone how, when and where to get Stephen Curry open.
Yet one of his most underrated abilities is being able to play an edgy game of chicken with officials he knows he’ll rarely lose, because the stakes are too high. It’s the equivalent of playing with a Mario star, knowing no harm can come his or his team’s way, despite playing more physically and more aggressively than anyone else, all while riling up the opponent.
It’d be foolish to say that Green’s emotions don’t sometimes get the best of him. In the past, Steve Kerr said Green sometimes stepped over the line. Hell, Green’s emotions one game—during a run-in with Durant—played a role in Durant deciding to leave Golden State, according to Durant himself.
Still, the double-edged sword that Green carries when he has one technical—singular in today’s NBA—is an incredible, counterintuitive weapon to be able to use.
Meat and potatoes: Good reads from SI this past week
Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports
- Howard Beck zeroed in on an interesting angle yesterday: For all the talk of Jordan Poole’s massive leap, and everything we all know about Klay Thompson’s shooting prowess and status as a future Hall of Famer, the Warriors lack a consistent, reliable second star for now. And it’s leaving Curry with more of a workload than he usually has at this stage.
- Last week, Beck also had a smart Daily Cover piece on Curry and how the basketball community sells him short by merely referring to him as the greatest shooter of all time.
- Rohan Nadkarni wrote about Boston’s turnover problems in Game 2 on Sunday night. A few days earlier, he’d written on the Celtics’ amazing comeback victory—and the historic nature of their stellar fourth quarter—to begin the series.
- Chris Mannix wrote about what generally ends up being Golden State’s favorite part of the game, and Boston’s least favorite: the pivotal third quarter, which was lopsided in both Games 1 and 2.
- Ahead of Game 2, Michael Pina offered a handful of suggestions as to how the Warriors could slow Boston’s offense down. He and I talked over fixes ahead of Game 2 on the Open Floor podcast, and much of what we discussed ended up playing out, particularly as it related to Tatum and Al Horford, and easing up on Boston’s star with the hope of slowing down the “others.”
- In last week’s newsletter, I touched on the handful of ways this Boston team and Ime Udoka bear similarities to the 2014–15 Warriors, who were also led by a first-year head coach in Kerr.
- Mark Bechtel has an interesting, unusual writeup: the four forgotten NBA Finals history tales you don’t know about, but probably should.
- Lastly, draft expert Jeremy Woo has been busy ahead of the selection process, writing on Victor Wembanyama in 2023, the top draft prospects who opted to rejoin their college teams, and the latest buzz he’s hearing as he projects which youngsters will land with each NBA team, priceless reading with the draft two and a half weeks out.
Thanks for reading The Playmaker. Feel free to forward this email to a friend or tell them to sign up at SI.com/newsletters. If you have any specific questions, just reply to this email or send a note to nba@si.com and I may answer it in a future edition.
