Stephen Curry gets emotional at the ejection of "Troublemaker" Draymond Green
[Basketball, Sports, Athlete Player image. Photo Credit to Pixabay]
Stephen Curry, known as one of the NBA players who usually doesn’t express anger, is now making headlines for showing great emotional expression after Wednesday’s game.
On March 28th, the Orlando Magic and the Golden State Warriors teams from the NBA played a game at the Kia Center, Orlando’s home stadium.
The Golden State Warriors won after a close game with a score of 101-93 and multiple players showing efficient stats.
After the game, Stephen Curry became visibly upset by Draymond Green’s ejection in the first quarter of the game.
In the first quarter of the game, Draymond Green yelled and had a confrontation with the referees for the foul call on Andrew Wiggins from the Warriors.
Ray Acosta, the referee of the game, gave Green an initial technical foul on his complaint.
However, Green continued to yell at Ray, so he was given a second technical foul in a row.
In the NBA, the first technical foul results in one penalty free-throw for the opposing team.
If a player is given a second technical foul in the game, they get ejected from that game.
Consequently, Green was ejected from the game, only 3 minutes and 36 seconds into the game.
This was his fourth ejection of the season
His ejection was critical for the Warriors, as he was the team’s main ‘Control Tower’ primarily responsible for their playmaking and being the main defender.
Since the Warriors are currently in a fierce race for the playoff position against the Houston Rockets, another one of the NBA teams, the loss of their core system player was a huge damage to them while in a desperate need to win.
After Green’s ejection, Curry expressed despair by showing tears and continuously shaking his head.
On social media such as Instagram, people speculated that he was exhausted from the heavy pressure as the team’s ace.
As the game went on, it became very intense in the fourth quarter.
Curry showed an ‘ace’ performance in clutch time.
He slotted a driving hook shot with 1:09 left in the game, and made a stepback three pointer with the final offensive position of the game that sealed the game-winner.
After the buzzer rang to announce the end of the game, the camera captured Curry venting his frustration by kicking a chair on the sideline of the Warriors’ side.
Curry was asked about Green’s ejection and his chair kicking in a postgame conference with reporters.
He said "All I’ll say is we need him. He knows that. We all know that. So whatever it takes for him to be on the floor and available, that’s what’s gotta happen – especially at this point in the year.", which emphasized Green’s importance, and revealed the needlessness and small disappointment in his rash actions at the same time.
Additionally, on the chair kicking, he mentioned that his team’s passion and him caring about their will to give everything for each game led to him being emotional about Green’s actions, and the chair kicking showed these emotions.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said of Green's actions on the podcast ‘95.7 The Game’, “With every game being so important. And us fighting for everything and for Draymond to get kicked out three minutes in. It was really unforgivable.”
On March 29, a day after the game, Green apologized for his behavior, saying he deserved ejection on his own podcast, ‘The Draymond Green Show’.
However, despite his sincere apology, public reaction towards him was frosty, due to his incidents during his NBA career.
He became known as a famous ‘troublemaker’ and ‘dirty player’ by causing various episodes in the past.
In fact, in the 2022 NBA playoffs, he was ejected from the game by stomping on the chest of his opponent, and this year, he was suspended indefinitely by the NBA Secretariat for punching another player in the face.
The numerous incidents that he was involved in formed a bad public opinion of him. Despite his apology and reflection, most people expressed callous and distrustful opinions about him.
- Yun Kang / Grade 11
- Calvin Manitoba International School