In an appearance on ‘The BIG Podcast’ with Shaquille O’Neal, Draymond Green revealed some hard truths about the 2016 NBA Finals. With just over two minutes left in the game, Green earned a technical foul during an exchange with LeBron in which he intentionally tried to take a swipe at the basketball legend.
“I tried to hit LeBron and I got suspended for Game 5 of the Finals… and you damn right I tried to hit him. You step over me I’m a grown *** man,” said Green. “You don’t step over my shoulder. There’s a lot of space on the basketball court, I don’t take up that much space. You don’t need to go over my shoulder. You go over my shoulder, you’re disrespecting me as a man. And so I got suspended for trying to make contact. But you throw a heating pack on the court and that’s okay?”
“I would have gotten suspended for the rest of the playoffs.”
– Draymond Green on Jamal Murray’s $100K fine for throwing a heat pack
NEW episode ft. Draymond Green is out now! 🚨 Watch here: https://t.co/kDtzpPfLze pic.twitter.com/6YTqKkv6I3
— The Big Podcast (@bigpodwithshaq) May 22, 2024
Game 4 of the 2016 Finals was a wild scene. with the Warriors up 2-1, and on the verge of taking a 3-1 series lead things were getting pretty intense as frustration and exhaustion were setting in. In the final minutes of the game, Draymond Green and LeBron James got caught in a heated exchange that resulted in a technical foul for both players. The problem for Green is that he didn’t even make contact with LeBron and he actually missed as he was trying to enact his revenge for being stepped over on national television.
For the refs, however, failing to make contact on the shove was not enough to get him out of a technical foul. And because it was Green’s second tech of the game, he was immediately thrown out and suspended for Game 5 on account of exceeding the maximum number of technicals.
Did Draymond Green Cost The Warriors Multiple Championships?
Whether it was the right call or wrong call, Draymond was unable to control himself in a game that was already won and it cost him the chance to play in a potential close-out match at home. While Green would return for Game 6, the momentum was already swung in favor of the Cavaliers and they would go on to win the series in a miraculous comeback.
Draymond is obviously not the only reason they collapsed in the final three games, but his absence in Game 5 left the door open for the Cavaliers to take advantage of his absence and that’s exactly what they did. LeBron and Kyrie combined to drop 82 points in the game that Dray missed and it was a trend that continued through the series-deciding Game 7.
Fast forward a few years, and there’s an argument that Draymond has forced an early end to the Warriors’ dynasty. It was him, after all, who pushed out Jordan Poole and he followed it up with one of his most disappointing seasons yet on the court.
Now, with the Warriors on the outside looking in on the playoffs, nobody knows where the Warriors go from here and there’s a sense that they left some titles on the table with how everything played out. Had Green just avoided the drama and been more in control of his emotions, the Warrior might be in better shape today to compete against the Western Conference.
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