The dust has finally settled on the Draymond Green–Steven Adams groin kick incident, at least with regards to Green's eligibility for the pivotal game on Tuesday.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, Green will not be suspended for Game 4 after striking Adams below the belt mid-way through Game 3:
Green will be fined, but it doesn't appear to be a significant amount.
Green also hit Adams in the groin in Game 2, using his knee on that occasion. The repeat offense led many fans and members of the media to speculate if Draymond should be suspended.
If it was the regular season, maybe the league office would've gone in a different direction, but with such an important game coming up, they didn't want to interfere with the outcome of the series.
After Game 3, Green insisted that the kick was unintentional. Steve Kerr wanted the flagrant-1 call on the court to be rescinded.
Not surprisingly, Adams disagreed about Draymond's intentions, calling the kick “pretty accurate.”
Still, Adams expressed confidence in the Thunder‘s ability to take down the Warriors in Game 4, regardless of the NBA's official ruling. Green will have to step up his play after recording a career-worst plus/minus rating of -43 in Game 3.
Of course, as every series gets deeper, the importance of each game grows. If the Thunder are able to pull out Game 4, they'll hold a steep 3-1 advantage over Golden State. Should the Warriors prevail, we'll have a best-of-3 to decide who will represent the Western Conference in the NBA Finals.
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