OAKLAND — When Draymond Green is at center in the NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors are +51. When anyone else is center — Andre Bogut, Festus Ezeli, Anderson Varejao, etc. — they are -19. (This excludes garbage time, stat via NBA.com’s brilliant John Schuhmann.)
Green’s play this series has him is in the running for Finals MVP — and the Warriors may be without him for Game 5 Monday night. The league is looking into the incident where Green got tangled up with LeBron James, went to the floor, and in getting up his arm swings and catches LeBron below the belt, so to speak. From Marc Spears of The Undefeated at Yahoo Sports.
There is growing concern in GS camp that Draymond could be suspended for Game 5 after incident with LeBron, source. Interviews taken place.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) June 12, 2016
Just like when you go on a job interview, often from that experience you can get a sense of which direction things are heading. That appears to be the case here.
Green was given a Flagrant 2 foul — but not a suspension — when he kicked Oklahoma City’s Steven Adams in the groin. That left Green one fragrant foul short of a suspension and it felt like a warning to Green as much as anything. Part of the league’s thinking reportedly has been that the leg flailing wasn’t something he could control as accurately as his hands and arm;, well, this time, it is his arm and hands involved.
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If Green plays, the Finals have a feel that the Warriors have figured the Cavaliers out and will close out the series up 3-1. Without Green, that becomes much harder on the Warriors’ defense in Game 5, and the door cracks open for Cleveland.
