Did you see it happen? We’re talking about Game 2 of the NBA Western playoff series between the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings earlier this week (as of this posting). Quite a wild affair, including Warriors star Draymond Green getting ejected for stepping on the chest of Kings star Domantas Sabonis.
It was quite a heated minute or two during the game. Sabonis and Green got tangled up under the rim and both crashed to the floor. The replay shows that while he was down, Sabonis wrapped his arms around Green’s leg. Green tried to get free to get back into the action, but Sabonis held on. Green ended up stomping on Sabonis’ chest, which drew the “flagrant two” foul call.
During the post-game analysis on Inside the NBA, Hall-of-Famer Shaquille O’Neal said he would have done the same thing as Green. Shaq called it a bad play all around: “One bad play begets another bad play… I’m not gonna sit up here and be a hypocrite… I’d do the same thing, I really would. Don’t be grabbing me because, what am I gonna do? Like if I stay there and just try and run forward, I’ll fall. You gotta get him up off you and if you get him up off you and you in the way, you might get stomped on.”
O’Neal admitted it wasn’t a good look for either player: “Was it a dirty play? Of course it was a dirty play… If you don’t grab me, this wouldn’t happen.”
As for Sabonis, he was also assessed a technical foul for grabbing Green. Opinions on Green’s actions were mixed. Some said it didn’t look as though Green was intending to injure Sabonis.. that he was just getting away and tripped. Others said his intentions looked deliberate.
The day after, the news got worse for Green and the Warriors, as the NBA front office announced DG would be suspended from Game 3 of the Western Conference series. After the Kings 114-106 win Monday night, that now puts the Warriors down 0-2, and playing without one of their biggest stars in Game 3.
Meanwhile, back on Inside the NBA, Shaq definitely got some pushback from colleagues Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley over Green’s moves. To that, Shaq invited Barkley to ‘lay on the floor’ to try and demonstrate that Green didn’t have a lot of options for how to proceed.
Shaq questioned it out loud: “What else was he supposed to do? Just gimme the options of what he was supposed to do.”
After the game was over, Sabonis was given medical attention, getting a chest X-ray to look for possible injuries. Fortunately, everything came back negative…no long-lasting damage or injury, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
So… the series now heads to San Francisco for Game Three of the best-of-seven series at Golden State’s Chase Center. Going to be interesting to see how the rest of the series plays out, especially between these two!
