The atmosphere was high in the Wolves locker room after their sixth victory in a row and the second against the Warriors at the end of a match which saw a big altercation between Jaden McDaniels and Klay Thompson, then an attack by Draymond Green on Rudy Gobert.
After the game, all Minnesota players expressed their dismay over the two incidents. “Klay grabbed my collar on the rebound, I tried to defend myself and take his hand away. I didn’t take the situation seriously, I even laughed. But that wasn’t the case for him.” explained Jaden McDaniels.
Next, we asked Rudy Gobert what happened between him and Draymond Green. The pivot of the France team was calm, smiling and in a teasing mood to describe his biggest enemy in the NBA.
Can you tell us your take on the altercation between Jaden McDaniels and Klay Thompson, and what happened next with Draymond Green?
I saw what you saw and I tried to calm the situation between Jaden and Klay. You can see in the video, I wanted to make sure the situation wasn’t going to get worse and I tried to separate them. And then I felt someone grab me by the neck. Right away, I said to myself: ‘I’m not going to fight because my team needs me.’ And so I put my hands in the air to show the referees that I wasn’t doing anything and I waited for the situation to end. Nothing more. His strangulation attempt wasn’t well enough to put me to sleep, so I kept my hands in the air and waited. What’s funny is that before the match, I told myself that since Steph wasn’t playing, Draymond was going to try something to get himself kicked out because that’s often the case when his guy Steph isn’t. not on the ground.
“When Steph doesn’t play, he always wants to get sent off”
Draymond Green has never hidden his disdain towards you for several years now. Do you think his reaction was more of an attack on you than a defense of Klay Thompson?
Already, I knew he wanted to be expelled. When Steph doesn’t play, he always wants to get sent off because he doesn’t want people to see the reality of the player that he is on the field without Steph. And then, he knows me. He knows very well that I never started a fight and he saw that I didn’t do anything to Klay. So yes, he did it on purpose, it was a deliberate attack. End of the story.
After seeing the video of the altercation, did it change your perspective?
Not really… He behaved like a clown. I’m proud of myself, I didn’t lower myself to his level, as usual. He doesn’t deserve to have my hands on him. As I said, I wanted to stay on the pitch because the team needed me so I tried everything to stay calm and show that I didn’t want to make the situation worse.
And during all of this, does he say anything to you, does he insult you?
Not even. He just held me and I felt it was him.
Do you think the NBA should suspend Draymond Green?
I hope the league will make decisions because this is not acceptable behavior. There’s not much else to say.
“I didn’t want to lower myself to his level”
Chris Finch just said that after the altercation, you were one of the most calm players on the bench and that your behavior really helped your teammates stay focused in the game. How did you manage not to freak out?
It’s self-control, it’s control. Maybe because I’m becoming a bit of a sage, a monk, a Shaolin monk (laughs). It’s knowing how to weigh the pros and cons of your actions, not letting yourself be overwhelmed by your emotions. It was a good test for me tonight because deep down I wanted to run and start it but I took deep breaths and focused on the match because it was the most important for me. the team and for me. But it requires a lot of maturity. Again, I didn’t want to lower myself to his level. It was an important game for us and I’m one of the leaders of this team, and the team needed me. If I had felt in danger I would have reacted differently, but that wasn’t the case so I really tried to keep calm and move on. The image is a bit annoying to see but in the end I kept my calm.
Looking back, how were you able to bounce back from the altercation and find a way to win the match?
We were tenacious, we showed a lot of maturity this evening throughout the match. We didn’t play at our best level but I kept telling the guys that we had to continue to trust each other, continue to play our game, continue to raise our level of play and we managed to come back little by little, and the guys were strong at the end of the match to win the match.
You counter Dario Saric in the corner in the last minute, after defending the pick-and-roll on Chris Paul well. Can you describe this passage and your decision-making to us?
When I was coming back on defense, I saw that I was towards Saric, and that KAT was on Looney. And I knew that as soon as CP saw that, he was going to play the pick-and-roll to be able to fix me and serve Saric for 3-points. So I anticipated. I went into the paint to force him to pass knowing that I was going to have to close on Saric to contest his shot and I managed to touch the ball. It was well seen by CP but I saw the action coming.
Comments collected in San Francisco.
