Injured Jazz guard George Hill misses second straight game.
Game 3 becomes heated between Green, official during first half
SALT LAKE CITY — After showing mostly good restraint for the first six playoff games, Draymond Green became increasingly agitated on Saturday night.
Green vehemently argued a number of foul calls against him and no-calls on defenders guarding him. After picking up his third first-half foul — when he and Rudy Gobert got tangled up and fell to the floor — Green got right into the ear of official Bennie Adams.
As he’d done a few times earlier in the game, Adams let Green rant and stood quietly, resisting the urge to nail the Warriors forward with a technical. Green stomped to the bench, signaled to a jeering Jazz crowd the series score — flashing two fingers and then zero — before taking a seat.
“They were booing me pretty loud,” Green said. “I think there’s some places I go where I should definitely be booed. I don’t know if this is one of them. I’ve never really had any beef with any players on the Jazz or done anything wrong to them. I don’t know why they were booing me so loud, but I reminded them they were down 2-0.”
After taking his seat on the bench, Green continued his dialogue with Adams, who was reffing nearby. Adams apparently had enough, turning — during game action — and whistling Green for a technical from the bench. It was his first technical of the postseason. You can accumulate seven before a one-game suspension.
“You want to know what I said? I said Bennie that’s BS,” Green said. “If that’s losing control of your emotions, then I don’t know, but I doubt it.”
George Hill’s left big n toe — which he originally injured way back in early November during a game against the Knicks — continues to ail him at the season’s most important time.
Utah’s starting point guard missed Game 3 on Saturday night against the Warriors after sitting out Game 2 and playing poorly in Game 1, suffering to fight through the toe injury.
“It’s really just more a question of his effectiveness,” coach Quin Snyder said. “He’s missed games with this over the course of the season. What happens is there are situations within the course of the game where he either lands on it or pushes off and it aggravates it and aggravates it to a point he is not able to be effective.”
Hill is a solid defender and one of the Jazz’s steadiest offensive weapons, when healthy. He averaged 16.9 points and 4.2 assists this season but was limited to 49 games. Utah started Shelvin Mack in his place, with Dante Exum and Raul Neto aiding off the bench as other, less appealing, point guard options against Stephen Curry.
Despite tweaking his n left knee in Game 2 and missing practice on Friday, Green played without restrictions in Game 3.
The only Warrior out with injury was reserve forward Kevon Looney, who remains sidelined with a hip issue. Looney was not part of the rotation when he was healthy.
After missing his first n 17 playoff 3s, spread over six games, Andre Iguodala finally connected from deep on Saturday night.
Iguodala hit a wing 3 late in the first quarter and then nailed another midway through the second.
Steve Kerr is not on the n road with the Warriors, but acting coach Mike Brown said the two remain in contact over the phone. “He’s had a ton of input,” Brown said. “His imprints are all over everything we do.”