Draymond Green vowed to crank up the intensity in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night at Chase Center, and it didn't take long for him to accomplish his goal. Before the Golden State Warriors knotted the championship series at one game apiece with a stress-free 107-88 win over the Boston Celtics, Green ignited an altercation with Jaylen Brown late in the second quarter, and almost received an ejection from the officials.
Green fouled Brown on a three-point shot attempt with less than a minute left, and when both players fell to the ground, some pushing and shoving ensued. The officials reviewed the play, and called it a common foul. If the ruling was a technical foul, however, it would've been Green's second of the game, and he would've been ejected. Brown told reporters that Green tried to pull his shorts down, and Green told ESPN that he's "earned differential treatment" from refs.
"It should've been a technical foul. And this is why people question the NBA. This is why there's a thousand conspiracy theories," Maggie Gray said during Maggie and Perloff on Monday. "You could've called it from a mile away, that Golden State was going to win the game. And Green should've been ejected from that game... And Steve Javie, the longtime official who works for ESPN, he said the quiet part out loud when he admitted there's selective officiating."
"There's this notion they can't win without Draymond, and I think that's been disproven, so far this postseason," Andrew Perloff said. "But he clearly went out last night, said, 'I'm going to cause as much chaos as I can.' So, I agree, he should've gotten a technical -- I don't think that's exactly why the Celtics lost... The officials shouldn't change their calls based on the circumstances. Because then you're starting this slippery slope that makes no sense."
Maggie and Perloff's complete thoughts on Game 2 of the NBA Finals can be accessed in the audio player above (conversation begins at 3:00p ET mark).
You can follow the Maggie and Perloff Show on Twitter @MaggieandPerl and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.