Fan disputes Green’s account of taunts
In the most emotionally charged Thunder game ever — Kevin Durant’s first visit to Oklahoma City since joining the Warriors — Rich Taylor joined the thousands of fans who booed. But on a night when most Thunder fans’ jeers appeared to be in the spirit of good, clean venting, the Warriors charged Taylor, the manager of the Pink Parrot bar in Bricktown, with crossing a line.
After Golden State’s 130114 win against the Thunder, the Warriors’ Draymond Green said Taylor called Durant “the p-word” and referred to players as “little boy.”
“This ain’t the ancient times,” Green said. “Slave days are over. You’re not gonna talk to guys like that. That’s disrespectful.”
A day later, Taylor said he only repeated a phrase Durant directed at him and insisted nothing he aimed at Warriors players was vulgar or had racial undertones.
“You’re under a microscope when you sit that close,” Taylor said. “I know walking in there that I can’t even swear. One swear word gives them the right to throw me out of the game.”
Many remember Taylor last summer making a video of himself placing a “For Sale by Coward” sign outside Durant’s home in Deep Deuce and leaving two Thunder jerseys on his doorstep. Taylor said he was hurt by Durant’s decision. He said he also shouted at Green, telling him at the start of the game “Don’t kick anybody tonight,” a reference to Green’s kicking technical fouls last season.
“He said, ‘I’ll kick you,’” Taylor said Green responded.
In postgame interviews, Durant claimed he didn’t remember the heckling. Green said Taylor crossed the line.
“I’m all for you cheering for your guys,” Green said. “Like, cheer and heckle. Heckle all you want. But don’t be disrespectful.”
Taylor maintained the only time he cursed was when he taunted the Warriors bench after a third-quarter sequence in which Durant and the Thunder’s Andre Roberson were hit with technical fouls, for an on-court exchange. Taylor claims Durant used an expletive and called him a “p——.”
During that exchange, Taylor said police officers told him to calm down, but he was allowed to remain in the arena.
“I was yelling aggressively,” Taylor said. “It wasn’t what I was saying, it was how I was saying it. If at any time I would have said the wrong thing, they would have just walked me out of the arena.”
Fans tune in for Thunder-Warriors
Durant’s return was big news in Oklahoma. The appeal extended well outside the state. ABC’s broadcast of the Warriors’ win against the Thunder on Saturday did a 4.1 metered-market rating, the highest-rated regularseason non-Christmas NBA game on any network since 2013, according to ESPN.
The game peaked nationally with a 4.7 rating from 10 to 10:15 p.m. It did a 19.5 rating in the Oklahoma City market, the best for regular-season game on ABC or ESPN in the market since 2012.
It also drew the second-largest streaming audience for an NBA Primetime on ABC game with an average minute audience of 320,000 unique viewers and 13.8 million total minutes streamed.