Tuesday night’s In-Season Tournament action saw the intensity get ratcheted up a few notches as a few games saw some scuffles with T’s handed out, with the biggest coming in the first two minutes of Wolves-Warriors when Klay Thompson and Jaden McDaniels got latched onto each other and refused to let go in a jersey tug-of-war.
That led to Rudy Gobert trying to pull Thompson off of McDaniels and then Draymond Green jumped in to throw Gobert in a chokehold, which he refused to let go of for some time. Luckily for the NBA, the chain of guys grabbing opponents from behind to drag them away ended with Draymond, who was ejected, alongside Thompson and McDaniels. After the game, Gobert called it “clown behavior” and said he wasn’t surprised, noting Green has a propensity to get tossed in games where Steph Curry isn’t playing.
Others weren’t as thrilled that Draymond was able to throw Rudy in a sleeper without having something happen to him, with former Wolves point guard Patrick Beverley laying out how he was disappointed in Karl-Anthony Towns, saying “I taught you better than that” and believing KAT should’ve thrown Draymond in a chokehold himself.
Pat Bev calls out KAT for not having Rudy Gobert’s back
“I taught you better than that.”
(
@PatBevPod )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 15, 2023
KAT is the perfect lightning rod for this exact kind of thing, as he’s never really shaken the “soft” label, but I can’t really blame him for not trying to earn his own ejection and suspension for escalating things. For one, that’s just not him, and beyond that, it would’ve been real bad for the Wolves if he got himself tossed from that game. I’m not surprised this is PatBev’s takeaway, but that’s also his role on a team. The star shouldn’t be the one risking suspensions and ejections, because they’re critical to the team’s ability to win. Neither KAT or Ant should be tasked with the goon role as well, and beyond that, it’s an NBA fight. It’s almost all performative, there weren’t actual fists flying, and we all know how the league adjudicates these things, handing down bigger punishments for those that escalate them further.
Yes, Draymond had Rudy locked in pretty good to that sleeper and he’ll unquestionably get a suspension for it, but you can let that go and go get the win, as they did. Beyond that, I doubt Rudy’s opinion on Towns has changed at all after this because KAT wouldn’t be the one you’d expect to jump in and throw hands for any reason in the first place.