Draymond Green to ESPN's E:60: I cost Golden State the 2016 NBA title

Chris Solari , Chris Solari | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Draymond Green should be feared on the court Draymond Green is one of the NBA's best defenders and here's some of the best images to support that.

LeBron James stepped over him. Draymond Green immediately reacted.

The former Michigan State star’s Game 4 punch to the groin of basketball’s biggest name changed the course of last year’s NBA Finals.

The Golden State Warriors won that game to take a 3-1 series lead. But after the game, the NBA assessed Green with a flagrant foul 1 for his "retaliatory swipe." It was Green’s fourth flagrant foul of the playoffs, which resulted in him being suspended for Game 5. James and the Cavaliers won that game, then the final two games, to rally for Cleveland’s first professional sports championship in more than 50 years.

And Green still blames himself.

“One of the most brutal things I’ve ever had to go through in my life,” Green said as part of an E:60 special that will air at 9 a.m. Sunday on ESPN. “If I played, we win of course. So I do feel it’s my fault we lost. … Absolutely my fault. But I don’t feel wrong for what I did at all.”

Flash forward a year. Green and the Warriors hold a 1-0 lead on Cleveland in the NBA Finals, with Game 2 set for an 8 p.m. tip off Sunday at Oracle Arena across the bay in Oakland. Golden State won the opener on Thursday, 113-91, in the third straight NBA Finals meeting between the two teams.

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Green didn’t need to do much offensively with new addition Kevin Durant and Steph Curry shouldering the scoring load. The 2012 MSU graduate did a little of everything, though, by posting nine points, 11 rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block in his 36 minutes. He also had four fouls, but no technical or flagrant calls against him.

But the moment last year with James continues to bother Green, who has just one technical foul and no flagrant fouls in the Warriors’ 13-0 start to this season’s playoffs.

“He stepped over me. And I had a natural reaction,” Green said. “I mean, you don’t step over a grown man. It’s disrespectful. And if it happened again, I would do the same thing – get off me.”

Teammate Curry said trash-talking and reacting is part of Green’s on-court personality.

“I mean, if you’re gonna come at him and start something with him,” Curry said, “you better be able to take it because he’s gonna come right back at you.”

Green’s mother, Mary Babers, said in the ESPN segment that, “LeBron figured out a way to get in Dray’s head.”

“That’s what happened,” she said. “The heart and soul of the team. If you take out the heart, hmm, how does the body do?”

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Green is in the prime of his professional sports life. But he said in the special he already has been thinking about when it comes to a close.

Standing at the construction site of the Warriors’ soon-to-be new home arena, right where center court will be, Green mentioned his passion for real estate development. He then flashed back to being a practice at Saginaw High and remembered one of his assistant coaches there throwing a basketball high in the air and watching it bounce over and over until it came to rest.

“’You see that ball? That’s your career,’” Green recalled. “One day, basketball will stop bouncing for me, so I just want to make sure that I’m in the position that I already know what I want to do and I’m ok with transitioning out of basketball and moving right over to whatever that thing is.”

Green had a lot more to say in the upcoming segment:

On donating $3.1 million to MSU: “Michigan State did so much for me. So much. I was in Cabo, and I was talking with my Uncle Wes. He was like, ‘You donating back to Michigan State?’ I was like, ‘Hell yes, I am.’ They gave me so much, so how could I not give back? And so then I came up with that number. You want a real reason why or you want a fake reason why? You want to know the real reason why. The reason I came up with that number is, I like a good challenge and Magic gave $3.07 (million). I said, ‘Nice, that’s an amazing gift – I’m going to give $3.1.’ So I became the biggest donor of an athlete in school history. I challenged Magic – he just donated more. Magic just shut me down really quick. But I’m OK with that, because it helps the university. And that was my goal. However, I am still the biggest donor of a current athlete.”

On trash-talking: “Trash-talking is an art. I love talking trash. That’s how I grew up in Saginaw.”

A clip showed Paul Pierce on the Clippers’ bench during a game earlier this season after he talked trash about Green for fouling Blake Griffin. Green barks back to Pierce, “You’re chasing that farewell tour – they don’t love you like that. You can’t get no farewell tour. They don’t love you like that. They ain’t got that type of love. You thought you was Kobe?”

“I’m not even preparing to say a word to Paul Pierce, and he starts talking from the gate. ‘He can’t guard you, he can’t guard you BG. He’s too little.’ And so now I’m over there hyped,” Green recalls. “You’re not Kobe. Why are you talking? The one thing about trash-talk is it’s just hype – boom, you just say something, boom, it’s right there. I think it was amazing. It also shut him right up.”

On being draft in second round in 2012: “I sat there on draft night, and I sat there. I thought that I would go at 19, 20. … I was pissed. Even once I got drafted, I cried. But I didn’t think many other guys should’ve been drafted before me. So you think that sticks with me?”

Q&A with Draymond Green at NBA All-Star Weekend Former Michigan State basketball star Draymond Green speaks with reporters Friday, Feb. 17, 2017, at NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. Video by Chris Nelsen / Special to the DFP

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!