Lost in the Golden State Warriors’ Game 5 win over the Toronto Raptors — perhaps because of Kevin Durant’s injury — is the fact that Draymond Green now has to be extremely careful in Game 6 not to pick up another technical foul.
On Monday night, he got T’d up for a heated reaction to a foul call, which was extremely significant because it was his sixth technical foul of the postseason. According to NBA rules, players are automatically suspended if they accrue seven technical fouls in the entire postseason.
It’s that rule that Steve Kerr questioned earlier in the playoffs saying. per ESPN, that he thought it could go “series by series or maybe every two series” when it came to tallying technicals.
So there’s a scenario in which the Warriors win Game 6, Green gets himself a technical during the victory and is suspended for the deciding Game 7. Don’t forget — back in 2016, he was suspended for Game 5 of the Finals against the Cavaliers because he was given a flagrant foul for a smack to LeBron James’ groin:
That was the series in which the Warriors blew their 3-1 lead. And now that the Duds will likely be without Durant, they need Green to stay technical-free on Thursday.
