There's always something going on when the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors square off. On Christmas Day, the Cavaliers and Warriors met for the first time this season, and tempers flared in the first quarter. Kevin Durant appeared to shove Jose Calderon after the Cavs point guard fouled KD to prevent Golden State from getting an easy basket in transition.
Calderon urged the referee to give Durant a technical foul, which would have been his second of the game, and resulted in an automatic ejection. However, the refs did nothing, and color commentator Jeff Van Gundy knew exactly why one of the league's biggest stars wouldn't be tossed in a marquee matchup on Christmas Day. "He should be ejected, but they won't do it," Van Gundy explains. "It's a total double standard, we know it exists and it's OK that it exists. Just admit it."
After the game, Durant toldESPN's Chris Haynes that there were some Cavs players who were urging the referees to get him ejected. "Man, I understand that's a part of the rules, but they didn't want me out the game," he said. "They didn't want to win that way. It meant nothing to me. Technically, they were trying to get me to get tossed. It wouldn't have felt the same if they would have gotten me tossed and they would have won that game. So, I moved past that. It wasn't serious."
Practically confirming Van Gundy's remarks that they were not going to eject Durant in the first quarter, the Warriors' star forward admits that he never feared getting hit with another tech after the incident with Calderon. "Hell nah. They're not tossing me in the first quarter," he said. "They're not tossing me in the first quarter over a little bump. And I heard Isaiah Thomas and Tristan Thompson talking to the ref [to toss me out]. You can ask [Dwyane Wade], [LeBron James], Kevin Love, them dudes, they didn’t want me out the game at that point. I wouldn’t want them out the game. That’s not what it’s about."
Even if the Cavaliers beat the Warriors on Christmas Day, someone would have brought up that Golden State was playing without Steph Curry. Whether the Cavs got Durant ejected or not, there was no way Cleveland was going to be able to say they reallydefeated the Warriors.
