Draymond Green’s Warriors trailed by 16 points with him on the floor Monday night. They trailed by 10 the moment he finally left it, then tied the game by the fourth quarter.
That’s the detail buried under every ejection headline out of Chase Center: Golden State’s deepest hole got dug while its most disruptive veteran was still in uniform.
Maluach pushed Green down in a physical sequence in the paint, and Green responded by shoving Maluach to the floor (officials ruled Green’s response the aggressor action), then grabbed Brooks’ jersey by the neck when Brooks ran in to pull him off. Two technicals later, he was gone two minutes into the third quarter with Golden State down 67-57.
Green has an ejection history long enough to have its own highlight reel, and Brooks has one of his own from earlier the same week.
The Warriors had actually been down worse before any of this happened: a 16-point hole in the second quarter, with Green on the floor logging four points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal in 17 minutes. Those are not numbers that explain why this team needs him out there.
What’s actually striking is how little anyone reacted. hitc.com rounded up the fan response under the headline “Least Surprising Ever,” and that headline isn’t hyperbole. It’s an accurate transcript of a fanbase that stopped being shocked by this guy a long time ago.
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Brooks framed himself as the peacemaker afterward: “I was just trying to de-escalate it. He was just tweaking all game.”
I’m a Suns fan. Watching Green get tossed was the only part of that fourth quarter I actually enjoyed.
The system that lets this repeat is the real issue. Technical fouls get assessed per incident, not per reputation, so a player can clear that two-technical threshold over and over without anyone weighing the pattern. Green’s season already includes running his mouth about Luka Doncic’s MVP case, which makes this the version that came with his hands on someone instead of just his mouth.
None of it mattered to the scoreboard. Steph Curry put up 34 points, seven assists and six rebounds, Charles Bassey had a career night off the bench with 19 points and eight rebounds, and Golden State tied the game 93-93 after three quarters before finishing it off 116-113, Green nowhere in sight.
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This was already his second ejection scene of the week, even though the one who got tossed this time wasn’t him. Draymond’s still Draymond. The Warriors won anyway.
