Draymond Green may be the most notorious provocateur in the NBA. James Harden is capable of annoying opponents in subtle ways. Put the two together and we have the incident that occurred on Friday night when Golden State and Houston faced off.
Harden was checking Green when the Warriors’ do-everything forward cocked his fist back and punched the Rockets’ MVP candidate in the wrist.
As opposed to the times where Green has kicked opponents and he’s tried to write it off as an accident, this is as blatant as it gets. It looks even worse when you consider that Harden’s left wrist has been bugging him for some time. The interesting thing about this incident, though, is that you can argue Green had a legitimate excuse for doing this, as Green claimed that Harden pinched his hip.
Draymond Green said he punched James Harden's wrist because he pinched him. pic.twitter.com/iTnrdlCqZV
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) April 1, 2017
If you go back and watch the moments before the punch, you can see that Harden’s left hand absolutely gets a piece of Green’s uniform and hip. Green also said that this is something Harden does often, and that this isn’t something that’s common around the NBA.
Whether or not this excuse is valid and Green was right to do this is up to you. Either way, this is more proof that the Rockets (especially Harden) and Warriors do not like each other.
