Even as the physicality escalated on the court in Game 2 of the Warriors’ first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets, coach Steve Kerr believed the fans inside the soldout Toyota Center crossed the line.
“It’s not ideal when a crowd is chanting ‘F you, Draymond’,” Kerr said after Golden State’s 109-94 loss Wednesday night evened the series at a game apiece. “I’m all for fans cheering for their team, and if they want to yell at the opponents, great. But I just think ‘F you’ is a little much.”
The four-letter word rung out in unison as the clock wound down and Green splayed out on his seat on the Warriors’ bench. It wasn’t the first time an opposing crowd has directed the chant toward Green, notably happening in Boston during the 2022 NBA Finals.
Green seemed to be less bothered by the obscenities than his coach.
“It’s not original,” he shrugged while polishing his sunglasses behind the microphone. “Been there before, won a championship while it was happening. Can’t steal other peoples’ (stuff). That belongs to Boston.”
Nonetheless as the series shifts to San Francisco, it has already taken on the intensity of some of the Warriors’ fiercest previous battles.
“Houston played great; they were really physical, just like we expected,” Kerr said. “We’ve just got to lick our wounds, and back to work tomorrow.”
“This is who we’ve been all season,” Houston forward Tari Eason said. “We’ve been a tough team. We’ve been a gritty, grindy team all season. We are who we are.”
The Rockets outrebounded the Warriors by double digits and held them below 100 points for the second consecutive game but, moreover, showed they weren’t afraid to muck it up. The teams combined for six technical fouls — three apiece — and it could have been more.
Neither Green nor Fred VanVleet were T’d up after exchanging words late in the fourth quarter, leading to both benches spilling onto the court and needing to be separated. The only foul assessed was on Eason, who threw a towel into the group of Golden State players.
“With them, some of the guys they’ve got over there, their thing is to try to beat you mentally,” Eason said.
He didn’t name names. But the Houston crowd did.
“He’s a competitor, he’s always going to be in the mix. I’ll ride with Draymond forever,” Kerr said. “Because of his career, his championships, his fire, he’s going to be a lightning rod. That’s all part of it. I would prefer fans use a little bit more discretion and remember the guy has kids. Maybe I’m old school.”
Quinten Post, who earned one of the Warriors’ technicals, said, “I think you saw a lot more emotions from both sides” compared to the first game of the series. Green, on the other hand, didn’t just downplay the crowd but also the intensity on the court in a game that saw the Warriors lose Jimmy Butler III to injury battling for a rebound in the first quarter.
He said he thought it was “a little less physical than Game 1,” and after some thought, Stephen Curry concurred.
“There were just a couple crashes that happened out there,” said Curry, who wasn’t above getting on the ground for a loose ball, tussling with the Rockets’ leading scorer, Jalen Green, in the first half.
“We know what their M.O. is and what they’re trying to do: Use their size and their athleticism to try to bully us. We put up a pretty good fight in both games. … Probably as physical as Game 1, just a different style.”
Both teams get two days to recover before Game 3 on Saturday, but the Warriors’ fate likely rests in the results of the MRI that is scheduled for Butler in between. He was diagnosed with a pelvic contusion after falling hard on his tailbone.
While Amen Thompson was called for a common foul on the play, it wasn’t determined to be a flagrant. As he crashed the offensive glass, Thompson undercut Butler and took his legs out from underneath him.
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“I asked our guys behind the bench and they said it just looked like there was some physicality on the rebound and Thompson just inadvertently found himself underneath Jimmy,” Kerr said. “We didn’t think there was anything wrong with the play. It was just one of those plays.”
Green, as always, found himself in the middle of it.
“I was trying to box out Thompson,” he said. “Somehow he ended up under Jimmy’s legs.”
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