With the National Basketball Association having upgraded his Flagrant Foul 1 to a Flagrant Foul 2 and fining him $25,000 for Sunday’s Game 3 incident in which he kicked Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams in the groin, Green was obviously exhausted of having spent 1 1/2 days as the center of attention. However, the National Basketball Association has reviewed the play and upgraded it to a flagrant 2 while slapping Green with a $25,000 fine.
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With 5:57 remaining in the second quarter Sunday, Adams fouled Green on a drive to the hoop.
Green has denied kicking Adams in the groin on objective, and instead criticized Oklahoma City star Russell Westbrook.
“I see how somebody can think it was intentional, but yet nobody can go in my head and say, ‘Draymond was thinking about kicking him, and he kicked him, ‘ ” Green said before the league’s announcement.
Green – one of the NBA’s most valuable players and the key to much of the Warriors’ success this year – refused to admit wrongdoing after Game 3, claiming that the kick was merely part of his follow-through.
“Stuff like that happens all the time”, Kerr said. That was the case for even young kids who play the game near Woodland Park as part of their after-school program. The Warriors trail the Thunder 2-1, and if Green is suspended the Warriors will lose plenty of All-Star muscle for Game 4 on Tuesday night.
Thats what was frustrating to me, he said. I would think they would rescind it. But I know what happened. But I know what type of competitor he is and I think I know how he would react. Several players have been suspended one game for striking an opponent in the groin, most recently Cleveland Cavaliers reserve Dahntay Jones, whose one-game suspension for hitting Toronto Raptors center Bismack Biyombo in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals was announced Sunday.
“That’s what was frustrating to me”, he said. It was frustrating that I couldnt get it going.. I was shocked they even looked at it. Scott Foster told me they were looking at it to either determine if it was Flagrant 1 or Flagrant 2, I was in shock.
“The way I look it looks intentional to me”, Westbrook said.
Green answered when asked about the line between playing the way he does and being careful, saying, “I’m never going to be careful”.
There is inadvertent contact all the time on plays. He was held to six points and four rebounds in the game, committing four turnovers and going 1 for 9 from the field. “Everything else is pretty irrelevant to me”.
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“Obviously, it’s happened twice in the last two games,”Thunder coach Billy Donovan said, “and that’s something the league will take a look at”. Because of a previous Flagrant 1 in Golden State’s first-round series against Houston, he now has three points under the league’s guidelines.
