Tuesday night’s in-season tournament game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors featured three ejections, a chokehold and a torn jersey all within the opening two minutes.
Warriors defensive stalwart Draymond Green ran across the court and put Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert in a rear naked chokehold because Gobert was wrestling Klay Thompson away from Jaden McDaniels. Green, Thompson and McDaniels were all ejected. Following the game Gobert called out Green for “clown behavior.”
“Clown behavior and I’m proud of myself for being the bigger man again and again,” Gobert said to The Athletic following the Wolves win. “And yeah, (he) doesn’t even deserve me putting my hands on him. My team needed me tonight. I did whatever I could to keep my cool and then show that I wasn’t making the situation worse, and I do hope that the league is going to do what needs to be done because that’s just clown behavior.”
What Happened?
If you watch the video closely, McDaniel and Thompson have a hold of each other’s jerseys as they head up the floor. The situation escalates and Gobert comes over from behind to restrain Thompson. There is no malicious intent in anything Gobert does, as the referees explained in their rulings. He was deescalating the situation.
Now if you want to argue he should grab his own player and not Thompson, that’s fine. It’s a weak argument. If you are truly trying to deescalate a situation you grab the closest person to you and restrain them. That’s what Gobert clearly does. He is standing Thompson up.
Green comes from behind with bad intentions. Watch the film. He aggressively goes at Gobert and puts him in a rear naked chokehold. That does the opposite of deescalate. But Gobert holds his arms up showing the officials he’s not escalating and that Green is the clear aggressor.
“He’s grabbing me, he’s grabbing me, he’s grabbing me,” Gobert recalled. “(But) the choke wasn’t good enough…It was a long time, and if he knew how to choke it could have been way worse. He tried to. His intention was to really take me out. And I kept my hands up the whole time just to show the officials that I wasn’t trying to escalate the situation.”
Green And Gobert Have History
Green and Gobert don’t like each other. The two have engaged in several verbal spats over the years. The preeminent defensive players of their generation and of all-time. So there is a natural on-court rivalry and then they escalate into social media beef, like when Gobert was upset about not being an All-Star and cried and Green mocked him on Twitter.
This is what it is, but it’s indicative of where the two men are mentally and emotionally at this point in their careers and potentially where their teams are headed.
Green has always played with an edge and he often crosses over that edge. But he’s been critical to four title teams with the Warriors. When things are going well, the Warriors deal with him being difficult — like the time he blew up at Kevin Durant in the midst of a run to a potential three-peat.
But when things are bad, they can derail — like when he kicked LeBron James in the privates during the NBA Finals and was suspended, contributing to the Warriors 3-1 collapse, or last year when he knocked out then teammate Jordan Poole in practice, effectively neutering his own ability to be the emotional leader the team needed.
In Tuesday night’s game Gobert was the more composed player, recognizing his team needed him to be on the floor.
“I do a lot of work — meditation work, things like that,” Gobert said. “So I was like, ‘It’s a good opportunity for me to show that I can overcome my emotions and then be the bigger man. And my team needs me in the game. So I had to keep my emotions away and really focus on the game.'”
Gobert also said he predicted Green would do something to get himself ejected before the game.
“It’s kind of funny because before the game, I was telling myself that Steph is not playing, so I know Draymond is going to try and get ejected,” Gobert said. “Because every time Steph doesn’t play, (Draymond) doesn’t want to play — it’s his guy Steph. He’ll do anything he can to get ejected.”
The Warriors are like any aging champion, trying desperately to hold on and make another run. When you’re desperate, sometimes emotions can get the better of you.
The Wolves are 2-0 against the Warriors this season and are in the driver’s seat in group C of the Western Conference for the in-season tournament. They don’t have the championship pedigree of the Warriors, so winning the tournament and using it as a catapult into a dominant regular season would go a long way for this team.
At 8-2, the Wolves are just behind the Denver Nuggets at the top of the conference. It’s early, but they look like a team ready to take the next step.
