Warriors’ Thompson, Cavs’ LeBron engage in war of words

Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green will not play for the NBA Finals Game 5 after he was handed a Flagrant 1 foul for hitting LeBron James on the groin towards the end of Game 4 last Friday. A flagrant one foul should be, with a doubt, the unchallenged actions of one player, and this was not the case.

Game 5 is a must-win match for the Cavs for this finals series because one more loss will mean another championship won by the Warriors.

This obviously irks the Warriors, who tried to avoid publicly criticizing the National Basketball Association. It honestly doesn’t matter what we think about what he did or didn’t do.

Why can’t we all just be friends? The 26-year-old forward for Golden State was involved in a similar incident with Oklahoma City Thunder big man Steven Adams, where the two got tangled under the basket during a game in the Western Conference Finals.

“There is no way you can say this is an acceptable act”, NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Granted, not many of those teams were forced to suit up for the potential clincher with arguably their most important player (14 points, 9.3 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.3 blocks in the series) relegated to the sidelines.

But, without Green, who Bogut describes as the Warriors “voice both physically and emotionally”, they could be vulnerable. The Warriors, of course, sided with Green. LeBron James and the rest of the Cavaliers won’t have to worry about Draymond tying to take him out, and can just focus on taking over this game and lead the Cavs to a win.

“Guys talk trash in this league all the time”. “We all have our own opinions”. He rarely gets into on court scuffles and is someone who takes the high road often when people come after him. (I’m paraphrasing what was actually said). But I’m not sure I could have suspended him exclusively for hitting Lebron after the guy tried to step over him. “It’s another challenge for us and we’re going to embrace it and we’re going to accomplish it”.

“He’s disappointed”, Kerr said of Green. And they’ll face Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

“He stepped over me”, Green said. Nobody can make up what Draymond does individually.

Green’s presence will be missed, but as we’ve seen previously, his backup will still get the job done.