It’s no secret that Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green has some history with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and on Saturday, he added another chapter to the story by way of an altercation with Donovan Mitchell.
Donovan Mitchell and Draymond Green were getting into it 👀🍿 pic.twitter.com/h7HvkKQY2A
— Ahn Fire Digital (@AhnFireDigital) November 12, 2023
The altercation led to Green receiving a technical foul. It was his second technical of the game, leading to an automatic ejection.
While Mitchell remained in the game and helped the Cavs come away with a big win, that didn’t stop his mom from reaching out to him — several times — to talk to him about the incident with Green.
“By the time Cavs star guard Donovan Mitchell got out of the shower and went back to his locker inside the Chase Center, he already had five missed calls,” wrote Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
“All from his mother.
“Mitchell’s mom, Nicole, doesn’t like seeing her baby boy get into altercations. So, she wanted to talk about the latest incident with Golden State antihero Draymond Green.
“’He pushed me, so I pushed him back,’ [the younger Mitchell] said when asked about the fracas following Cleveland’s 118-110 win over the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night.”
When the officials on Saturday went to the monitors to review the altercation, they also took a look at the plays that led up to it. They found that on a previous possession, Green had bumped the younger Mitchell from behind in transition, a foul that had gone uncalled and led to the retaliation from the Cavs guard.
“Simple tit for tat,” the younger Mitchell said. “Nothing outside of that. I just knew they had to look at that previous play. Gotta know the rulebook a little bit.”
Green finished the game with eight points, five rebounds and four assists. Due to the ejection, he logged just 18 minutes. The younger Mitchell seemingly knew what he was doing when he played in a role in the veteran getting tossed.
“When asked specifically whether it crossed his mind that Green had already picked up an earlier T for arguing with a referee, Mitchell smirked,” wrote Fedor. “He knew. He was playing the game. Mitchell and teammate Tristan Thompson — a mainstay of the four-year rivalry between the Cavs and Warriors that started nearly a decade ago and someone who has a well-documented history with Green — were even discussing it afterward.”
The younger Mitchell didn’t have the most efficient evening, shooting just 7-for-22 from the field, but he still finished with 21 points, seven rebounds and five assists. The Cavs came away with a 118-110 win over the Warriors to move to 4-5 on the season.
Perhaps the most notable chapter in Green’s history with the Cavs came in the 2016 NBA Finals. He was suspended for Game 5 of that series due to an accumulation of flagrant fouls in the postseason.
His absence opened the door for Cleveland to get back into the series, which is exactly what the squad did. The Cavs won three games in a row to erase a 3-1 series deficit and stun the Warriors to win the NBA title.
The Cavs and Warriors would both love to get back to the NBA Finals this season, but there is still a long way to go before that time of year arrives. The two teams won’t meet again in the 2023-24 regular season, with Cleveland sweeping Golden State in both of their matchups already.
The younger Mitchell and Green certainly brought some fireworks to Saturday’s game, but only one of them left with a win, and it was the 27-year-old guard.
