The Golden State Warriors suffered a 101-104 loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves yesterday in the absence of their star man Stephen Curry. However, that was hardly the biggest story of the game. With less than 2 minutes into the game, Warriors’ Klay Thompson and Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels got themselves into a bit of a wrestling match in the middle of the court.
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Thompson initially grabbed hold of McDaniels while pushing toward the center court. However, McDaniels appeared to be short on patience and grabbed hold of Klay’s jersey in response. The two players pushed and shoved for a few seconds before Thompson was thrown around a couple of times.
The Timberwolves’ Rudy Gobert also joined in and appeared to lunge at Thompson in a bid to restrict the altercation. However, Gobert’s attempt was seen as further intimidation by Thompson’s teammate, the mercurial Draymond Green.
Green came running from defense to put Gobert in a chokehold as Chris Paul pulled Thompson away from the altercation. The likes of McDaniels, Green, and Thompson were all ejected from the game. Responding to the situation on Undisputed, NFL legend Keyshawn Johnson appeared to be clear about who the biggest perpetrator was during the commotion.
“First of all, the initial attack on Klay Thompson was a bit much there. You grabbing a guy, throwing him around a couple times, now, Draymond obviously from a distance, is looking at Rudy Gobert put his hands on his teammate. I am a 100% with the enforcer. He is my enforcer in Draymond Green. I am 100% protecting my players on my team. I am not gonna sit back and allow somebody to do something to you,” he said, in a bid to defend Green.
Johnson later claimed that while the ref’s idea was to punish Draymond due to his checkered history, the fault lay with Rudy Gobert in the matter. “I know we want to all jump on Draymond because of Draymond’s history…He has a history, so the first thing we wanna do is condemn him. It’s a Flagrant 2, okay, that’s fine, he may get suspended again, that is fine, I’m willing to accept that…As far as I am concerned, it is on Rudy Gobert,” Johnson added, addressing the possibility of Green receiving another suspension in the days to come.
Regardless, the situation quickly turned bizarre after what initially seemed like a routine altercation. Draymond Green was all too determined to have his teammate’s back, and had Rudy Gobert in a chokehold for seconds on end.
Steve Kerr believes Klay Thompson should not even have been ejected from the game
While Keyshawn Johnson thought the fault lay with Gobert, Warriors’ head coach Steve Kerr believes that Thompson should not even have been ejected from the game. Kerr claimed that Klay was simply trying to run upcourt and grabbed McDaniels’ jersey when his was initially being pulled.
Kerr went on to talk about how he was okay with the punishment for Draymond Green, and did not have a problem with how he reacted to the situation. Kerr said that Green was simply trying to defend his teammate and had seen that Rudy Gobert had initially grabbed Klay.
The 58-year-old claimed that he was angry about the decision to evict Klay. Regardless, Kerr concluded by saying that it was a bizarre way to start the game, considering the incident took place after just over a minute and a half.
