Draymond Green could be suspended for Game 4 vs. Thunder
In the second quarter of the Thunder's blowout Game 3 win over the Warriors, Draymond Green kicked Steven Adams below the belt, and received a flagrant-one foul for his actions.
It could have been a follow-through maneuver and an exaggeration of contact after receiving the foul from Adams, but it appears to be much more intentional when seeing it from a second angle.
This could potentially be terrible news for the Warriors. Golden State trailed by as many as 41 points before dropping Game 3 on Sunday to fall behind 2-1 in the series, and if the league should decide that a suspension is warranted, the Warriors would be without their best defensive player in Game 4 when trying desparately to even the series.
"I thought it was inadvertent," Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said afterward. "I was shocked they even looked at it. Scott Foster (the referee) told me that they were looking at it to either determine whether it was a flagrant-one or flagrant-two. And I was in shock, because there's inadvertent contact all the time on plays, so that really surprised me."
When asked if he'd be surprised if Green's kick resulted in a suspension, Kerr went in the opposite direction.
"Oh, I would think that they would rescind it," Kerr said. "I mean, no, honestly. Stuff like that happens all the time. There's contact, people's arms, legs flailing. If they think it's on purpose ... play the game. This stuff happens all the time. Westbrook kicks out his feet on every three, and there's contact, and that's just part of the game. So I don't understand how that can be deemed a flagrant-one. I think it should be rescinded."
That was a nice bit of lobbying from coach Kerr there, but it's tough to believe in Green's innocence. This is the second consecutive game he's caught Adams in that region, and that alone may make it difficult for the NBA to look the other way.
Not surprisingly, Green also made the case that his actions were unintentional.
The league handed down a one-game suspension to Dahntay Jones of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday, a day after Jones hit Bismack Biyombo below the belt. Jones isn't even a rotation player for the Cavs, and he has a history of being involved in plays like these. But it wouldn't be difficult to see the NBA acting similarly where Draymond Green is concerned, no matter how important his presence might be to the Warriors' chances of evening this series.
Adams got kicked, uh ouuuuchj pic.twitter.com/SiyRmGLhsy
— âarcusD (@_MarcusD_) May 23, 2016
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