I don’t know how it came to this, but the recent draymond tantrum has lead a lot of people to cherry pick one sentence out of the rule book and use that to attack the refs when they made the right call. I don’t even understand how you can believe this if you’ve ever watched basketball.

The rule in question:

“An official may assess a technical foul, without prior warning, at any time.  A technical foul(s) may be assessed to any player on the court or anyone seated on the bench for conduct which, in the opinion of an official, is detrimental to the game. The technical foul must be charged to an individual. A technical foul cannot be assessed for physical contact when the ball is alive.”

Seems pretty cut and dry, but what people conveniently leave out is the immediate following line which says:

  1. EXCEPTION: "Fighting fouls and/or taunting with physical contact. "

So yes obviously technicals can be called for live ball contact, and if you’ve watched a handful of games you have seen it happen.

Now we can move on to the flagrant review process. Mitchell committed a foul on draymond by bumping him 35 feet out. It probably wouldn’t even qualify for a flagrant review if draymond didn’t react like a donkey and cause an altercation.

Rules on Flagrant Foul replay reviews:

Referees may use replay whenever they are not reasonably certain whether a foul meets the criteria for a flagrant foul. Previously, the foul had to be called flagrant on the floor in order to initiate instant replay. The definition for a flagrant foul is: Flagrant Foul Penalty 1: Unnecessary contact committed by a player against an opponent Flagrant Foul Penalty 2: Unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent When a flagrant foul call is made, referees conduct a review and consider the following: Whether the foul call be categorized as a flagrant 1 or flagrant 2 (thus ejection) or stay as a common foul or changed to a technical foul Whether any other players committed unsportsmanlike acts immediately prior to and/or immediately following the foul. Based on their review and the criteria, they will assess the appropriate penalty:

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This game, despite the fact that i loved watching it, was by many definitions a black eye, ~4.5 hours long real time with the last 2 minutes taking over 20 minutes real time. This is testament to the sloppy and physical nature of the game seemingly instigated by Draymond. Immediately prior he had been causing all kinds of headaches for the refs. At 8:26 in the 3rd Draymond crashes down on a Mitchell box out and gets in a bit of a push with his forearm/elbow, not really much but Mitchell called it out, Draymond had drawn (flopped) a charge at 7:23 in the 3rd on Jarret Allen and immediately got up and in his face. A few plays later at 6:39 in the 3rd Draymond is in the corner looking and talking to the Cavs bench completely out of the play.

Looking at all of this and taking into account draymonds history and his actions during the altercation I think its very reasonable to say draymond deserved the technical. If Donovan deserved a Flagrant 1 is much less cut and dry. On the play in question, which is definitely NOT a take foul, we can see that he makes contact with his core, attempts to get in a somewhat traditional defensive stance, does not run through draymond, and draymond stops and leans back in to him making the contact appear worse.

I would not argue that Mitchell wanted to foul draymond, but that does not change the magnitude of the foul call. We can look at the criteria for Flagrant 1 & 2 above and quickly rule out a Flagrant 2. Unnecessary is a bit ambiguous but tends to be interpreted as dangerous to the recipient, which i just do not see. Draymond moving into the defender has also been a focus of recent reinterpretations of the rules by NBA refs, so i feel on this particular play the refs made a great decision assessing fouls. Draymonds elbow, incessant taunting and fight instigating are 100% detrimental to the game.