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Game 4 of the NBA Finals wasn't short of drama despite the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ 137-116 blowout win over the Golden State Warriors on Friday night.
Draymond Green earned his second technical of the series and his fourth of the postseason after arguing with an official in the third quarter; but in a high-stakes game of this caliber, the Defensive Player of the Year candidate will make sure to get some bang for his buck when it comes to giving the referees an earful.
“Ain't no tech gonna stop me from being me,” Green told reporters, according to Joe Noga of Cleveland.com. “At least if I'm going to get them, let me earn them. Let me get my money's worth if I'm gonna get some techs. It's the day and age we live in.”
Green will be fined $3,000 this weekend for his latest tech, but the Warriors forward was almost ejected from the game after a confusing exchange between the officials and the scorekeeper, which resulted in mis-labeling a prior Steve Kerr technical foul and assessing it to Green — which could have resulted in his second of the game and consequent ejection.
The mishap was cleared in-game by the officials as Green stayed in the game, but most viewers and announcers were left puzzled at the decision, since it appeared that a first-half technical was indeed assessed to Green, not Kerr.
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“I should have done a better job of making sure that the table knew the technical foul was on Coach Kerr,” official John Goble told the Associated Press following the game.
The confusion was also extended to the court, as Green and Kerr discussed within themselves just what was going on.
“[Official Marc Davis] told me to keep playing,” Green said. “It's crazy to think that he thought it was my second technical foul and I would get a technical foul for that. But, whatever.”
“They messed that one up bad. That was pretty bad.”
Holding a 3-1 lead in the series, Green was asked if he would get teased with “3-1” jokes come game time during Monday night's Game 5 — he wasn't remotely surprised.
“That's just the world we live in,” he said. “But we were up 3-0. We weren't up 3-0 last year. It's a little different. At the end of the day, the series is a little different. Thank God I get to play in Game 5.”
