The NBA said on Wednesday that part of their decision to suspend Draymond Green for Game 3 had to do with his antics after stomping on Domantas Sabonis, when he was yelling at the Sacramento Kings crowd and helping whip them into a frenzy.
“The stuff that happened afterward, that doesn’t help the situation,” NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars said. “But if it was just that alone, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I focused on the act itself, and the fact that it’s a repeat offense, those were the two main things.”
Longtime Bay Area sports columnist Ray Ratto joined Tolbert & Copes on Thursday, and said Green’s teammates made a mistake by not stepping in.
“When he stomps Sabonis, the thing that jumps out at me is that none of his teammates sort of grabbed him and said ‘Let’s go, let’s get out of here,’” Ratto said. “I don’t know, maybe he gets mad at them, but they’ve got to do what they can to preserve his availability, and I don’t think they recognized how bad the incident was, or did enough to try to dissuade him from making it worse.”
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