Draymond Green has turned us all into maniacs, poring over a new Zapruder film every night. Last night, playing in Game 4 as a result of the NBA’s decision not to suspend him for using Steven Adams’s nuts as a field goal tee, Draymond Green maybe/maybe didn’t trip Enes Kanter.
It’s the same deal as the kick to Adams’s groin, it looks pret-ty bad, but there remains the tiniest chance that his legs got tangled with Kanter’s and they both went down. Still, there is a scissoring action that is not, how they say, “a natural basketball move.” No foul was called and Klay Thomspon scored an easy bucket in transition. Nevertheless, the OKC crowd got plenty of views of it during the game.
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About three minutes later, Russell Westbrook exacted some revenge when he tried to draw a foul on a three-point attempt by flailing his left leg out from under Green—the exact sort of move Steve Kerr specifically mentioned when defending Green three nights ago. Westbrook didn’t get the foul call, but Draymond was close enough to his leg that he stepped on his foot and tripped as his momentum carried him through the play.
There was a bit of a to do about this as well, with many claiming it was a definitive trip, but that seems mostly based on the context surrounding the game and players, rather than what actually happened. Westbrook and Green got into a war of words through the press following the Adams incident; Westbrook said he thought Green intentionally kicked him and Green responded saying Westbrook basically invented the exaggerated flop/drawing a foul play. As a result Westbrook tried to trip him, goes the thinking. It just doesn’t seem to bear out on the replay. He definitely stuck his leg out to try to draw contact, but there doesn’t seem to be any further movement to indicate he was trying to trip him.
OKC blew out the Warriors again, 118-94 and took a commanding 3-1 lead in the series, which is great for the Thunder, but terrible for all of us nuts who just love to roll up the sleeves and break down tiny, near imperceptible movements made by world class athletes.
[TNT]
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