Golden State Warriors big man Draymond Green voiced his frustration with the referees from Tuesday’s matchup between the Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers.
Austin Reaves appeared to hit Green in the face while the former was attempting a layup early in the third quarter, but no whistle was blown.
draymond green pissed at the ref pic.twitter.com/8RUnVEJ2fm
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Green said the following about seemingly taking an elbow to the face from Reaves.
Draymond Green:
"I hit someone in the face, I get thrown under the jail. But when I get hit, they don’t see it."
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— Ahn Fire Digital (@AhnFireDigital) April 10, 2024
“Steph [Curry] was standing there, which was great because he heard how the referee talked to me,” Green said of his talk with an official. “And he went immediately from talking to me to like, ‘Yo, you can’t talk to him like that.’ And I think that’s the wackest part about it. You can say and speak to me however you feel. But if I say something back, it’s a tech. That’s wack to me. You miss a call, guy clubbed me across the face, and then you like, ‘I don’t wanna talk to you. Get out my face.’ Who are you? You don’t just get to not talk. You missed a call. You can’t get mad ’cause you missed a call. And so, it’s a little crazy.”
Green alleges that he is officiated differently than other players are.
“But I appreciate the guys being there because it’s a bit frustrating,” he said. “Austin gashed — gashed his elbow, hit me in the teeth. And it’s no — I get hit in the face every single game, and I get no foul called. I hit somebody in the face, I get thrown under the jail. But when I get hit in the face, we don’t see it. I don’t — I get hit in the face every single night. And it’s — I’m not sure one time it’s been called. But I f—— blow my breath on somebody and they’re reviewing it for a flagrant foul. I don’t get it. It’s crazy to me.”
The Warriors went on to beat the Lakers by a final score of 134-120, and Green put together one of his better 3-point shooting performances in quite some time. He finished with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting from 3-point range while also accumulating six rebounds, 10 assists and one block.
Tuesday’s 15-point performance marked the second time this month that Green has reached double digits in scoring.
Across five games played so far in the month of April, he is averaging 8.0 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.0 block and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 51.6 percent from the floor and 46.2 percent from deep.
During that span, the Warriors own a 4-1 record with wins over the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz along with the Lakers. Their one loss since the start of the month came when they lost to the Mavericks by two points on April 5.
The Warriors’ winning stretch has the team in contention for a top-eight seed in the Western Conference. Golden State is just one game back of the Sacramento Kings for the conference’s No. 8 seed with three games left on its regular-season slate.
After taking on the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday night, Green and the Warriors will play both of their last two games of the 2023-24 regular season at home.
While it’s understandable that Green was frustrated by the lack of a call after appearing to get hit in the face by Reaves, he has a reputation for being combative towards officials, so perhaps that’s why he was supposedly met with animosity after trying to argue for a call on Tuesday.
