While it’s no surprise that things grew heated in the 2022 NBA Finals between the Warriors and Boston Celtics, Draymond Green revealed a shocking new detail from the intense six-game series.
The Golden State star appeared on the first episode of “Unfiltered with Complex Sports,” which was released Thursday, and alleged that Celtics fans used a racial slur toward him at TD Garden.
“I was rattled. You hear boos, and I mean I’ve heard people screaming and yelling at me everywhere that I go,” Green told Pierce Simpson in the interview. “But I’ve never heard an entire gym, every time I touched the ball or I don’t have the ball, an entire gym [screaming] ‘F--k you Draymond.’ I thought that was cool, actually. That didn’t rattle me.
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“But when I’m running down the court and it’s ‘b---h,’ it’s the n-word, those are insults at my character. Those are insults to me as a man. So you’re in this place where it’s like, ‘I really want to grab one of these people and wring their neck,’ but I’m going to lose that battle.”
Green was the clear villain at TD Garden during Games 3 and 4, immediately greeted with boos by Celtics fans during pregame intros and basically every time he touched the ball afterward.
As Green noted in the interview, fans also shouted some NSFW chants at him in the Warriors’ Game 3 loss.
While Green appeared to not let it bother him at the time and even embraced the villain role, his wife, Hazel, ripped the NBA and Celtics fans in a lengthy Instagram story for their comments toward her husband.
Golden State Warriors
While Green never has been one to shy away from the trash talk or let it get to him, he did admit he was a little taken aback by the fan response.
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"And then to hear people say, ‘Oh, that’s just a part of the game.’ Y’all put a code of conduct up on the screen every night, that’s just a part of the game? Oh, it’s a part of the game because it’s me," Green said. "Which is why I said on my podcast I wear that as a badge of honor. That’s a special thing."
In the end, Green and the Warriors came out victorious over the Celtics, winning their fourth NBA title in eight seasons. And though it’s in the past, it's evident Green hasn't forgotten what was said to him in those moments, and he’ll likely carry that into Boston when the Warriors visit TD Garden again on Jan. 19.