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Kendra Andrews, ESPN
SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green isn’t a stranger to controversial foul calls or ejections. And the Warriors’ 118-110 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers added another one to the list.
Green was ejected in the third quarter pf Saturday night’s game after picking up two technical fouls — the second coming on a review several minutes after the play and apparent foul occurred.
“I am the same person that got suspended from the NBA Finals for flagrant fouls that were all caught from after the fact. … Nothing surprises me,” Green told ESPN after the game.
It was Green’s first ejection of the season and 17th of his career (including regular season and playoffs), the most among active players.
With 6:23 to go in the third quarter and the Warriors trailing by 10, Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell seemingly charged at Green and intentionally shoved him. On the previous play, Green stripped Mitchell of the ball as the two went tumbling to the floor.
After Mitchell’s retaliatory push, Green stood in Mitchell’s face as a referee tried to intervene. The two were separated but continued to jar at one another as the officials went to review the play to see if Mitchell’s foul should be deemed flagrant. They continued to go back and forth during the review, with team security keeping one hand on Green at all times.
The referees decided Mitchell’s push was a common foul, but they found that Green made contact with the Cleveland guard after he stripped him of the ball and assessed him a technical foul.
“I had never heard this rule, but apparently you can retroactively call a technical from two plays before upon review,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “There’s a lot of plays I’d like to go back to from three years ago. It was bizarre.”
It was Green’s second tech of the night. The initial one came in the first quarter after arguing with a ref. Green finished the night with eight points on 3-of-4 shooting (including 2-of-3 from 3-point range), five rebounds and four assists.
As Green made his way off the court, he left some parting words to his team.
“If he gets thrown out of the game, he knows we have to respond,” Kevon Looney said. “[He told us] to keep up the energy and don’t let up.”
When Green was ejected, the Warriors were in the midst of their best stretch of the night — a classic Golden State third-quarter barrage. After losing the second quarter by 17 points, Golden State outscored Cleveland 31-16 in the third. They finished the period on a 16-7 run immediately after Green’s ejection.
“It was more emotion. It was more force,” Kerr said of his team’s third-quarter performance. “This was the first time literally all season that the first unit has looked right. It’s because of the energy they all brought. … That’s what led to that 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. This was the first time the starters had a positive plus-minus in a game this season.
Entering Saturday’s game, the group had a plus-minus of minus-23 in 67 minutes. Last season, this starting lineup had a plus-21.9 net efficiency, the best of any five-man lineup to play more than 100 minutes together.
“It’s a small sample size, but [we’re] starting to set a pattern of getting off slow, and it’s a problem we have to correct,” Curry said. “But we’re competitors … holding them to 16 in the third shows we have it in us. We just have to do it and execute and come up with a better edge to start games.”
Outside of the third quarter, the Warriors were lacking energy all night. They committed a season-high 20 turnovers, resulting in 32 Cleveland points, and allowed the Cavs to attempt 43 free throws.
The Warriors shot 41.1% from the field and 34.2% from three, with Curry leading all scoring with 30 points on 9-of-24 shooting. Golden State’s second-highest scorer was Thompson with 14 points, but his overall night wasn’t strong. Thompson called it “maybe my worst performance of this young season.”
“We felt sluggish tonight,” Kerr said. “This team puts a lot of pressure on us. … It felt like we reverted to our fouling ways. … We’ve been a little bit better early on, but this looked like last year. Just fouling way too much. It’s hard to get into an offensive rhythm when the other team is shooting free throws every time.”
The Warriors credited the Cavs’ defense for most of their issues, but they understood they have to actively work to rebound from their third loss in a week, especially as they continue the early parts of their six-game homestand.
“Just because we are home doesn’t mean you 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’ll be the challenge for tomorrow, especially for that starting unit to get off to a good start.”