Draymond Green has racked up his fourth technical foul of the postseason.
During a sequence late in the first half that saw LeBron James drive to the hoop towards Draymond, Green ended up smacking LeBron across the face. While that was a foul in itself, Green racked up a technical for throwing a temper tantrum after the play:
LeBron James goes down after being fouled by Draymond pic.twitter.com/i2GL8C1WgD
Draymond Green picks up his first tech of the 2018 #NBAFinals after arguing this call pic.twitter.com/MVUjOYBPch
While you can't see it in that video, Draymond also proceeded to call LeBron an expletive while standing on the sidelines. You can view what Green called LeBron in the link here.
The Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors are currently tied at 56-all at halftime.
For the fourth straight summer, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors entered Game 1 of the NBA Finals knowing that they would have to go through their longtime rival if they wanted to lay claim to the Larry O'Brien Trophy and raise another championship banner and their respective arena.
While the defending champions will be without the services of one of their top defenders in Andre Iguodala for, at least, Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals, the Cavaliers learned just hours before the opening tip of tonight's tilt at Oracle Arena that All-Star power forward Kevin Love had successfully completed the league's concussion protocol after taking a shot to the head in the early portion of Cleveland's Game 6 win over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals.
For Cleveland to have any chance of stealing a game on the road and flipping home court advantage in their direction, they will need for Love to take his game to the next level as, no matter how dominant LeBron James has looked during the postseason, this Golden State roster is simply too deep to think that he would be capable of single-handedly leading his team to victory like we saw at times during their run through the Eastern Conference.
On the other side of the equation, the Warriors need to put together a full 48 minutes of basketball if they want to enjoy the type of success that many pundits expect them to see during this series as that is an issue which plagued the defending champions at times during their matchup with the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals. With Cleveland considered to be such a large underdog by oddsmakers and analysts alike, it would behoove Golden State's roster to do everything in their power to jump on the Cavaliers in the early going in order to prevent Cleveland from hanging around, gaining confidence and potentially giving LeBron the opportunity to take over in the fourth quarter.
Regardless of how Game 1 plays out, these will be the keys for both the Cavaliers and Warriors throughout this series if they want to bring home another NBA championship.
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