CLEVELAND -- It is next man up for the Golden State Warriors.
Forward Draymond Green will miss Game 5 of the NBA Finals tonight at Oracle Arena in Oakland because of a suspension for the accumulation of flagrant fouls in the postseason after a review of his actions in a Game 4 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena Friday night.
“It's disappointing, but I'm not going to let it get us down,” Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson said. “We had a next-man-up approach all year. Draymond, we know it's going to kill him not being there, but we're going to go out there and do it as a team and win for him. Go out there and try to make a statement on our home floor.
“We obviously can make up for it, but we've got to do it collectively. Nobody can make up what Draymond does individually. Luckily for us, we've got such a deep, talented team, we can really do it, and we believe it 1,000 percent.
“I'm proud of this team because we've been so great all year making adjustments, and this is just obviously a big adjustment we've got to make. But it's another challenge for us, and we're going to embrace it, and we're going to accomplish it.”
Late in the fourth quarter of Game 4, Green and Cavaliers forward LeBron James got physical on an attempted screen and the result was Green ending up on his back. Then, James stepped over Green to get back into the play and was smacked below the belt by the downed Warrior.
Eventually, the two players had to be separated and were awarded double fouls. Upon review of the play, Green, who also kicked Oklahoma City center Steven Adams below the belt in the Western Conference Finals on a flail attempt to draw a foul, was assessed another flagrant foul.
“They got tangled up,” Thompson said. “I didn't even get to see the whole play. I saw them barking at each other, but it's nothing. I mean, guys talk trash in this league all the time. I'm just kind of shocked some guys take it so personal.
“It's a man's league and I've heard a lot of bad things on that court, but at the end of the day, it stays on the court. We're all competitive people. Trash talk is a part of the game in basketball. It's a part of any sport, especially this competitive.”
According to Thompson, the feud boiled over because of the use of language that James took exception to. But according to the Warriors’ sharpshooting guard, that is just part of the game.
“There are some unwritten rules,” Thompson said. “You don't really talk about anybody's family. That's probably the biggest rule. You don't bring any outside factors into it, but if it's just talking man-to-man, me and my friends are playing, growing up, AAU circuit, whatever, if it was something you said to another individual and it was going after their character or whatever but it was just about them. You can live with that.
“I grew up with brothers, too, so when we would play, we'd always try to put each other down. I grew up with a lot of friends close in age and competitive, but like I said before, don't bring anybody's family. That's the only time it really crosses the line, is bringing someone's family into it or talking about race or gender or something, but when it's just bad words or something or some cuss words, man, that's emotions. You let it go and you let it stay on the court.”
