Draymond Green Blasts Ref for Not Listening to Him During Heated Moment in Win Over Lakers

Kristen Wong | Apr 10, 2024

Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Draymond Green was dubbed an honorary Splash Cousin in Tuesday’s 134-120 win over the Los Angeles Lakers ,as he helped spur one of the Golden State Warriors’ best shooting nights in recent history. With all eyes fixated on Green’s stellar offensive performance, however, the veteran forward wished more attention was paid to what he believed was an egregious missed foul call in the third quarter of the game.

In the incident in question, Green went up to contest Lakers’ Austin Reaves’s lay-up and fell to the ground after Reaves appeared to swing his elbow toward Green’s face while making the basket. 

Green was seen giving the referees an earful about the no-call and later offered his blunt assessment of the situation in a postgame press conference.

“I get hit in the face every single game, and I get no foul calls,” Green said. “I hit somebody in the face, I get thrown into jail. But when I get hit in the face, we don’t see it… I’m not sure one time it’s been called. But I f---ing blow my breath on somebody, and they’re reviewing it for a flagrant foul.”

Draymond Green: “I hit someone in the face, I get thrown under the jail. But when I get hit in the face, they don’t see it.” pic.twitter.com/t1dSfQv0g6

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) April 10, 2024

Green finished with 15 points, 10.0 assists and 6.0 rebounds while shooting 5-of-7 (71.4%) from beyond the arc. Tuesday’s victory marked his first game with at least five threes since 2017, and the Warriors as a team made 26 threes to clinch the season series against the Lakers.

Perhaps more known for his on-court altercations, Green was suspended for five games last November for placing Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a headlock. Less than a month later, he was handed an indefinite suspension for striking Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic in the face and ended up missing 12 more games.

His notorious reputation aside, Green went on to describe what he believed was a double standard in today’s officiating.

“You miss a call, a guy clubs me across the face, and then you’re like, ‘I don’t wanna talk to you! Get outta my face!’ Like, who are you? You missed a call. You can’t get mad because you missed a call,” continued Green. “Steph was standing there, which was great because he heard how the referee talked to me, and he went immediately from talking to me to like, ‘Yo, you can’t talk to [Green] like that.’ I think that’s the wackiest part about it. You can speak to me however you feel, but if I say something back, that’s a tech. That’s wack to me.”