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OAKLAND — The day started with Warriors general manager Bob Myers telling his team to tone down its demonstrative behavior that elicits technical fouls. The day ended with Warriors guard Draymond Green lamenting that it might be impossible to reach that goal.
“I don’t know what to do at this point,” Green said.
In the Warriors’ 121-103 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday at Oracle Arena, Green collected his 14th technical of the season after doing something he argued was unavoidable. Green converted on a layup and then pushed the ball out of bounds for a specific reason.
“When you lay up the ball and you’re standing under the rim, it’s probably going to hit you. It’s just like physics,” Green said. “My body is solid. Nothing is going to go through me like a video game. It might be like that in [NBA] 2K where the ball may slide through my body, but not in real life. So it’s probably going to hit me.”
And as a result, officials also hit Green with a delay-of-game warning. An annoyed Green then flailed his arms out. He motioned the ball had hit off his shoulder. He then dismissively waved his right hand before running back to the other side of the court. Green then heard the whistle that signaled he received a technical foul with 8:12 left in the second quarter.
“Maybe I should’ve missed the layup like I missed the rest of them,” said Green, who scored 12 points albeit on 4-of-17 shooting. “Then it wouldn’t have hit me and then I wouldn’t have gotten a delay of game. Then I wouldn’t have been told I threw an air punch. I’ll try to miss more layups. I missed a bunch of them tonight. It worked. I didn’t get another tech. That’s the goal: miss more layups and don’t let the ball hit me. Then don’t throw air punches.”
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Green spoke with obvious sarcasm when he spoke those words. Warriors coach Steve Kerr spoke with sympathy mere hours after arguing “we all need to do a much better job of staying poised,” including himself.
“I didn’t think that warranted a tech,” Kerr said. “But we know our team has been too emotional and too demonstrative. We’re going to be under the microscope. We have to be ready for that. We’re just going to have to show better poise.”
The Warriors have not shown much of that this season when the calls do not go their way.
The Warriors do not just have the NBA’s best record (42-13) and the league’s most prolific offense (115.5 points per game). The Warriors also lead the NBA in ejections (nine) and rank third in technical fouls (47). The biggest culprit of that? There is not a definitive answer.
While Green leads the NBA in technicals (14), Warriors forward Kevin Durant leads the NBA in ejections (four). While Durant is tied for second-most technicals (11), Green has the second most ejections (three). Kerr cemented a tie for fourth place in technicals among NBA coaches (five).
“It’s hard. We want competitive people. One of my favorite things about Steve Kerr and Draymond is a deep competitiveness,” Myers said. “That’s fantastic. That’s what we want. But at the same time, how do we channel that approach?”
The Warriors had some ideas.
“We have to do a better job in controlling the way that we react,” Warriors forward David West said. “But nobody is perfect in this game. It’s an even balance that has to be found between playing hard and playing aggressive and controlling our energy in terms of reacting to officials in terms of how they call the game. That has been very difficult.”
So much that West said a referee has told him this season that “it’s very hard for them to officiate the game.”
Why?
“The dynamics of the game has changed,” West said. “The floor is wide open. Guys are quicker. Teams are playing at a faster pace. There are very few teams that walk it up traditionally and throw it inside and run sets. It’s one of those things where we have to find a balance somewhere.”
That became difficult for Green this week. He went through an 13-game stretch in which he did not pick up a technical foul. But that all changed in the Warriors’ loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday. Then, Green became upset that the whistles remained silent after Thunder forward Jerami Grant elbowed him in the mouth and caused him to bleed. Instead of hearing Green out, he was slapped with a technical. Green was later ejected late in the game after getting called for an offensive foul. He dismissively flipped the ball, prompting an immediate ejection.
Green became upset with the ensuing fallout. Because his insurance did not cover it, Green said he spent $500 on dental care that entailed replacing his tooth and receiving braces he will wear “for a couple of weeks.” The NBA also fined Green $50,000 for “directing inappropriate and offensive language” during his first technical.
“That’s pretty upsetting. So it costs me $50,500 to get hit in the tooth,” Green said. “That’s great. That’s amazing. It’s an expensive tooth. I could’ve gotten a fake one for less than that.”
So where does Green go from here?
“He plays at the edge. It’s one of those things. Some nights there are officials that take more than others,” West said. “He’s got to learn that. If he doesn’t play or play with that intensity or at the edge, it’s just not who he is.”
Therefore, it hardly sounded surprising Green expressed apathy toward any detente with officials. As Green noted, “I don’t really care about communication between players and referees.”
To put himself in a better mood and perhaps stop himself from griping more about the officials, Green shared how he son walked from the Oracle Arena parking lot to the building’s room designated for players’ kids.
“My son walked as far as he walked in his life,” Green said. “That’s pretty incredible.”
It is also pretty incredible that Green has struggled to make progress with officials on the same day Myers preached to the team about doing so
“Just play the game. Worry about each possession and try to be the best we can each possession and try to win the possession,” Durant said. “We did that tonight. Its’s a step in the right direction. It will make up for a lot of problems if we just try to win each possession no matter what.”
It did not make up for Green’s problem, though, a problem that left him unsure when or if he will fix it.
