The Golden State Warriors can capture their second consecutive championship tonight with a win over the Cavaliers in Game Five of the NBA Finals in Oakland.
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The incident occurred when Green made unnecessary contact with a retaliatory swipe of his hand to the groin of James with 2:48 remaining in the fourth quarter of the Warriors’ 108-97 win in Game 4 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on Friday night. Green is not afraid to do battle at the board, leading his team in rebounds with an average of 9.6 a game in the postseason.
With less than three minutes left in Game 4, Green fell down and James tried stepping over his head as Green stood up.
“The cumulative points system is created to deter flagrant fouls in our game”, said Kiki Vandeweghe, NBA executive vice president of basketball operations, in a statement. “It is what it is”, Green said after Friday’s game in an interview with ESPN Radio.
Instead, it’s probably better to look at this ruling as a lifetime achievement award for Green’s past transgressions against opponents’ private parts, most notably Oklahoma City’s Steven Adams in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals. “Anybody in that situation, you can’t expect them to be OK with the decision”.
After the game, James was also assessed a technical foul, but said he didn’t intend to taunt Green.
Coach Steve Kerr even had a very specific and excellent comparison for a Finals team losing a key player and clinching a title, anyway: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar out with an ankle injury and Magic Johnson ascending into National Basketball Association lore. That’s a huge loss for the defending champions, as Green had arguably been their best player in the series.
“You don’t let anybody walk over you”, Bogut said.
That win-at-all-costs mentality has suddenly opened the door for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers to get back into the NBA Finals, and added an extra edge to a burgeoning rivalry.
The Golden State Warriors are right back where they started.
But mostly I think it will come down to Curry, Thompson, Iguodala and Barnes-the rest of the Death Lineup, though we know the DL doesn’t really exist without Draymond in the middle of it. In contrast to when Cleveland lost Kevin Love for Game 3, there is absolutely no way to spin this as “addition by subtraction”.
“Draymond just said something that I don’t agree with”. Thompson also provided the best line at the podium this series, when he interjected Green’s falsely modest assessment of this Warriors team’s ranking among the all-time greatest by saying “We’re better than the Showtime Lakers”.
It’s hard to get a read now that they’ve gone away from tradition; still, I’d say that Mauer and Scott Foster seem like prime candidates for a double-lead potential Game 6 crew, with Danny Crawford and McCutchen set up for a double-lead potential Game 7.
James, of course, bristled at these comments, insisting on taking the “high road”, despite being tempted to respond to the Warriors’ comments.
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“Obviously people have feelings and people’s feelings get hurt even if they’re called a bad word”, Thompson said. While Green said it’s just “stuff that’s said on the court”, James took personal offense to it. This is my 11th year in the league, and I’ve seen more things than you’d like to know. “It’s hard to continue to do it, but I’m going to do it again”.
