The Warriors will enter the All-Star Break coming off of a loss, with more than a week to stew over a rather poor performance, for their standards, in Portland.
The Trail Blazers ended up winning by a 129-107 margin, but the final score isn’t fully indicative of how competitive the game was up until the final few minutes. With Portland up seven with just under four minutes to play, Draymond Green fouled Zach Collins on a drive with what appeared to be a hard foul, but one making a play on the ball.
The referees reviewed the play, and determined it was a Flagrant 1, which seemed a bit harsh and was, unsurprisingly, something Green and the Warriors disagreed with. Green was already frustrated with the officiating in the fourth quarter, so coach Steve Kerr decided to step in front of his player and light up the officials for him, with an expletive filled rant, spiking his whiteboard in the process of getting ejected.
Steve Kerr didn't like the flagrant foul call on Draymond Green, and now his vacation starts early https://t.co/zxCDhtkawy
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) February 14, 2019
If you’re going to earn an ejection, you might as well get your money’s worth and Kerr certainly did that. Kevin Durant pulled Kerr away and directed him to the locker room, while Kerr ripped into Ken Mauer and company. The Blazers hit their free throws and then a Jake Layman three-pointer put the game away after the freebies. From there, Golden State effectively punted on the game and it got way away from them.
The Blazers will feel good about the win and look to build off of this going forward, while Golden State will look at it as a blip on the radar. Still, it was a very chippy game with Zach Collins and Klay Thompson, of all people, getting into it earlier and earning double techs for excessive talking after an offensive foul was called on Thompson. It’s possible we see these two matchup in the playoffs, and we can hope this game indicates such a series would be competitive. If nothing else, it would be heated.
