Draymond Green DDT’d himself in another tangle with Steven Adams
After a series full of static, it just wouldn’t have been right for Game 7 of the 2016 Western Conference finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors to go down without featuring an incident involving Thunder center Steven Adams and Warriors power forward Draymond Green.
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With just under three minutes remaining in the second quarter on Monday night and the Thunder holding a 42-33 lead, Green and Adams once again tangled in the paint, this time fighting for rebounding position as a jumper by Oklahoma City superstar Kevin Durant traveled toward the basket. The shot splashed through, extending the Thunder lead to 11, but not before the two series-long combatants wound up on the deck, with Green seeming to take the worst of it:
At first blush, it looked like the bruising Kiwi had somehow put the All-NBA Second Teamer in a headlock and dropped him to the hardwood with a maneuver that another long-haired, mustachioed, throwback-style prizefighter might have appreciated. Upon closer inspection, though, it appeared that Green — whose methods have come in for questioning at multiple points during this series — incited the incident by hooking Adams’ arm before running afoul of DJ Khaled’s golden rule:
Adams lands on Draymond Green. pic.twitter.com/gU5X8r7eBA
— ⓂarcusD (@_MarcusD_) May 31, 2016
@_MarcusD_ pic.twitter.com/JuL471Aye1
— ⓂarcusD (@_MarcusD_) May 31, 2016
After reviewing the play, referee Danny Crawford decided the most reasonable and fair resolution was to slap both Adams and Green with personal fouls, which seems a bit unfair to Adams (what was he supposed to do once Draymond hooked his arm?) and added a bit of insult to Green’s self-inflicted injury of getting dumped on his head for trying to trap Adams’ arm. I’d say this represented a fitting end to a Western Conference finals full of conflagration between the two … but, y’know, there’s still a whole second half left to play.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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