Before anyone knew just how special Steph Curry's night would be, a big story to come from the Warriors game against the Grizzlies was the ejection of Draymond Green.
Green's dismissal from the game occurred early in the second quarter. He was assessed his first technical foul at the 10:32 mark for arguing with official Tre Maddox about whether a foul he committed was of the shooting variety or not. Less than a minute later, at the 9:45 mark, official Nick Buchert handed Green a second technical foul for waving his hand after committing another personal foul.
To the surprise of many, Green didn't argue the call after he was ejected. He quietly walked to the locker room.
After the game, Green declined to speak to the media for fear of saying something that might lead to a fine from the league.
"Nah, I'm going to save my money," Green told ESPN.
But head coach Steve Kerr and teammate Kevin Durant offered their thoughts after the game.
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"Everything happened at the far end of the floor. On the second one, all I saw was that he waved his hand. I don't know what he said. It didn't look like it warranted an ejection, but I was 100 feet away, so it's hard for me to reall tell you what happened. But it seemed like a quick trigger," Kerr said to reporters.
Durant, too, was on the bench, not in the game at the time of Green's ejection.
"I was on the bench. I didn't get to see what happened. I just heard the ref tech him up. But I think they said he waved his arm. I just don't even know what to say to that,"
A few moments later, a reporter circled back and asked Durant about the relationship between players and referees.
"Yeah, I can see it from both sides, though. I feel like if I was a ref, and all year, constantly, every game, all game, players from both sides are talking to me and trying to tell me how to do my job, I would feel a certain type way coming into some games sometimes. But as players, we just want a nice dialogue, just want to be able to talk it out out there. Because we're all just trying to have a good game, nobody get injured and just try to have some fun. I think the refs feel the same way. It's just a matter of talking it out as men and figuring it out. If you're wrong, just move on. If you're right, just apologize if you made a mistake. I think that's what's been happening lately with a lot of refs I've been talking to. If they miss a call, they'll tell us and if we feel like they missed one, they'll explain themselves. So just got to talk it out," Durant said.
Green now has an NBA-leading 10 technical fouls. He will be suspended for one game if he reaches 16 technical fouls this season.
