Draymond Green should not have been sent off at the end of the first half of the Warriors’ game against the New York Knicks on Thursday night at the Chase Center.
Shortly after the Warriors lost 119-104 to the Knicks, coach Steve Kerr revealed what the referees told him at halftime, shortly after they eliminated Green.
“At the break, Ben Taylor came and told me it was a mistake, that John Butler didn’t realize that Draymond was yelling at his teammate,” Kerr told reporters in a video call after the game. “He thought he was yelling at him.”
Green was sent off with just over a minute to go for the first half. After a turn in the attempt to pass to James Wiseman, Green shouted to the novice pivot as the Warriors returned to defense. He was loud enough for the screams to be heard during the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast.
Butler clearly thought Green was yelling at him and assessed a second technical foul, resulting in his automatic expulsion.
The Warriors were not playing very well and lost the Knicks 63-57 at halftime, but losing Green in the second half effectively ended any chance they had of winning the game. He makes it very different for the team.
“Obviously, Draymond is one of our best and most impactful players, so it hurt us, but we were playing really bad up to that point,” Kerr told reporters. “I’m not going to talk about refereeing, I’m going to talk about our bad game. We constantly foul. We are last in the league on fouls, I think, on allowed free-throw attempts. , foul, foul You are constantly having to get the ball out of the net after a team is throwing free throws.
“You can’t build any rhythm. We had four fouls in the first 55 seconds of the fourth period, so we are who we are and obviously I have to do a better job. We are undisciplined and we have to find a way to defend ourselves without getting dirty. “
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Andrew Wiggins, who finished with 17 points and nine rebounds in defeat, said the Warriors lost their vocal leader.
“It makes a big difference,” Wiggins told reporters. “Draymond is a big part of this team on both sides of the track. His presence, even on the bench, is huge. We missed him, obviously, tonight.”
The league, as soon as it analyzes the game film, will probably terminate the second technical evaluation evaluated by Verde. But that doesn’t lessen the pain of him missing the second half of Thursday night.