Draymond Green is a physical player but for Doc Rivers, the Golden State Warriors forward is being allowed to be one. He made the comment after Milwaukee Bucks’ loss at the Warriors wherein Green hit a hard foul on Giannis Antetokounmpo and it was ruled out a regular foul.
The play occurred in the second quarter.
AND-ONE. 😤
Giannis finishes through the contact. pic.twitter.com/WEz6Q0d9CC
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) January 8, 2026
Antetokounmpo, who is still under minutes restriction, still made the play but Rivers remains frustrated for what he thought an inconsistency the way players are officiated. He specifically mentioned Kevin Porter Jr. who got a technical foul early on for just complaining.
“I thought, in the first half, we didn’t do a good job of it. But listen, I also thought veteran teams like this get away with things. How you don’t look at the flagrant foul is ridiculous, right?” Rivers said according to Eric Nehm of he Athletic.
He then went on to call Green an instigator.
“And listen, I’m a big Draymond Green fan before I say that. And the reason I am is because he’s such an instigator, all right? But they called a tech in the first half on Scoot (Porter)? After Draymond Green’s waving his hands at refs, yelling at refs? But then they call a tech on Scoot? I mean, give me a break. Clear flagrant foul. It was a wind up.”
The desperate Bucks fell to 17-21 after the loss. Antetokounmpo finished with a game high 34 points and added 10 rebounds, and 5 assists.
Doc Rivers on why they lost
The loss ended Bucks’ two straight wins and got them further away from the play-in spot. They beat the Warriors back in November without Antetokounmpo.
Rivers rues the fact that they were not able to get anything from the three point line after bombarding from it early on. That is where things went wrong for them, he thought.
“We thought we could generate a ton of threes tonight, and every time we went downhill we did,” he said,
“And I thought we stopped doing that. I thought the reason is because we stopped trusting.”
The Bucks actually shot 43.8 percent from three, higher than their 39.5 percent of the season to place second behind Denver Nuggets. They shot better in three but they still lost.
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