Under most circumstances, Draymond Green being hit by a technical foul wouldn’t even be a story. Even Draymond being kicked out of a game is hardly newsworthy. But Saturday at Charlotte, Green managed to get hit with not one, but two techs with nine seconds to play, and the Warriors stuck to a two-point lead. Green was ejected and Terry Rozier hit the two technical free throws to even the game.
On the following possession, Rozier did this to end the game:
One night when Stephen Curry, who wasn’t feeling well right before the tip, had a last-second scratch, the Warriors had a pretty impressive – albeit ugly – victory in their sights, only to melt over the last of the assets.
It went like this: After Rozier hit a nasty step-back 3-pointer to cut Golden State’s lead to two, the Warriors had the ball with 42 seconds to go. You could say their first mistake was not taking advantage of the 2-for-1 chance and having the last possession no matter what. Instead, Brad Wanamaker ate 10 seconds while dribbling the ball against gentle pressure. Then Green held the ball at the top for three more seconds. Then Andrew Wiggins dribbled down another seven taps before launching a 25-footer, which slammed shut.
If you hold one trick instead of getting the 2-for-1 in that situation, it must be one good shot. A Wiggins step back 3 from zero movement is not a good shot. The Warriors ruined that property. But they were lucky. Green got a hand on the carom ball and Wanamaker secured an accidental offensive rebound. So now Wanamaker just has to wait for the Hornets to cheat on him, make a few free throws and the game is over, right?
Wrong. Rather than showing even a hint of urgency by dribbling away from Charlotte’s defenses, Wanamaker did all you did can not In that situation: He picked up his drool – with his back turned no less – with an aggressive trap that descended on him, and before he knew it, he was overcome.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr was very frustrated after the game, saying he tried to call a time-out before Wanamaker was tied. But officials said afterwards that the timeout didn’t come in before the tie, and it all resulted in a Wanamaker-LaMelo Ball jump ball in the center circle. And then all hell broke loose.
As you can see, it seems that Gordon Hayward didn’t have possession of the ball long enough – if he ever had – to call a timeout before Green tied him up. But the Hornets got the timeout, and you can understand Kerr’s frustration in the Warriors that they didn’t get the same benefit from the doubt about Wanamaker’s brainstop. Draymond, the one who went to the ground to tie up Hayward, had every right to be frustrated by that statement too.
But this goes without saying: in a two-point game with nine seconds to play, you can get not one, but two technical errors that argue a call, no matter how suspicious that call is. There is simply no excuse. If we’re going to praise Green’s constantly simmering intensity as the thing that makes him the player he is, then we have to criticize it when it gets over the top and costs the Warriors a game.
If you’re wondering what exactly, Green told the techies, crew chief Marc Davis confirmed after the game: via Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer – that the first was judged when Draymond “directed blasphemy against his opponent,” and the second was for “screaming blasphemy against a game official.”
Kerr, to his credit, held Green accountable thereafter.
Had it not been for Green Rozier to gift those two technical free throws, Rozier’s long two-point buzzer beater would have only leveled the game. Even after what was probably a bad decision awarding that timeout to Hayward and the Hornets, Golden State would have at least had a chance in overtime, and this assumes that Rozier would have made the same shot even under other circumstances. Drilling such a shot is one thing when the game is even and you have nothing to lose. Having that chance if you lose is a different story.
The Warriors are simply incapable of giving away games. They are now 16-15, only two games in the loss column are out of the picture of the playoff as they continue to play with a razor-thin margin of error this season. By the end of April, a loss like this could be the difference between making the playoffs and not making it, or playing in the play-in series as the lower seed meaning they have to win two out of three to to go ahead. only one as the higher seed.
You’d think a man like Green, who has to live the rest of his life wondering if his temper cost the Warriors a championship when he was suspended from Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals, would have learned by now that a time and place to fly off the handle. Clearly, no one is suggesting a mid-February game against the Hornets is the final, and officials can certainly show their own reluctance to give technical fouls at key moments.
Still, Green could not excuse this. This was not the first quarter. Or the second. Or the third. Or even the first 11 minutes, 50 seconds of the fourth. There were nine seconds left. A two-point lead for Warriors turned into a two-point loss, and it could chase them down the line.