CLEVELAND -- Draymond Green gets to play in this Game 5. Draymond Green needs to play in this Game 5. Just play basketball. No nonsense, no extracurricular activities. He needs to give the Warriors the versatile All-Star who is their defensive anchor. In the two games in Cleveland they've had the provocateur, the wrestling villain. It didn't bring them a championship.
Green spent last year's Game 5 in a suite at an Oakland Athletics game, after an accumulation of playoff flagrant fouls that culminated in a punch to LeBron James' groin. He had been on better behavior in these playoffs, actually trailing LeBron in the leg-kick category in Game 3. Still, he has been veering more toward reckless than game-wrecker lately after he returned to Cleveland, the scene of last year's crime.
"He knows he's got to keep his composure," said teammate David West, who believed assistant coach Mike Brown helped settle Green late in Game 4. "When stuff gets going like that, I think sometimes it energizes the other team and takes him out of his rhythm. But he knows that."
Green has tried to play to the crowd, egging on the fans when they start to jeer him ... even though afterward he claimed, "I don't pay attention to anybody in Cleveland, honestly. They don't seem to be the sharpest people around."
Yes, you can add the population of Cleveland to the list of people Green is at odds with now, including the Cavaliers and the officials. He picked up a technical foul, his second in the two games here -- and at one point it seemed he got a third after a mix-up between the referees and the official scorers, who mistakenly attributed an earlier technical on Steve Kerr to Green.
The clarification is becoming increasingly relevant in case of a here-we-go-again extension of this series to seven games. The technical foul was Green's fourth of the playoffs. If he truly had two, he'd be at five -- two away from the automatic suspension that's triggered by the seventh technical of the playoffs. Still, the possibility of two more games in which he could earn three more technical fouls remains in play.
"I just try to play basketball," Green said. "I'll tell you, ain't no tech going to stop me from being me. At least if I'm going to get 'em, let me earn them. Let me get my money's worth if I'm going to get some techs."
Earned or cheapies, technicals are the sorts of storylines Green is writing now, after he had masterfully scripted a narrative of better behavior brought on by a desire for redemption. Even better than good behavior would be good basketball, and Green hasn't provided much in this series.
Even though he scored 16 points in Game 4, his most in these Finals, it took him 16 shots to get there -- more shots than either Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson. This is the Cavaliers' defensive plan coming to fruition: double-team Curry, stay home on Thompson, and let Green shoot. He was 1-for-6 on 3-pointers and is shooting 25 percent from beyond the arc in the series, the continuation of a steady slide downward since he made more than half of his 3-pointers in the opening round against Portland.
He had 14 rebounds in Game 4, his best performance of the playoffs. But after being part of the collective effort to limit Tristan Thompson to 11 rebounds in the first three games, Thompson grabbed 10 in Game 4.
Apparently, Green even contributed to the Cavaliers' record-setting offensive outburst in the first half simply by what he said during the off day.
Kyrie Irving talked about "some chatter in there, and that adds some extra motivation." He added: "That taste wouldn't have been the same if we would have lost tonight and they would have celebrated on our home floor. So I'll just leave that at that."
It appears that Irving was referring to this quote by Green during Thursday's media availability: "That is a great feeling, winning on somebody else's floor, celebrating on their floor, celebrating in their locker room, quieting their crowd. As an athlete, one of the best feelings is going into enemy territory and just silencing their crowd. So it would be a great feeling."
James has been doing his best to avoid social media during the playoffs, even deleting apps from his phone so he doesn't accidentally open them, but apparently it was the talk of the locker room, and he knew the profile of the likely culprit.
"I think it came from Draymond, which is OK," James said. "That's Dray."
LeBron is battling bigger names than Draymond Green. Everything he does is measured against historical names like Michael Jordan and contemporary MVPs such as Kevin Durant and Curry.
It would be a victory if Green could lure LeBron into his mental trap. But the danger would be Green accidentally springing it on himself while he tries to set it.
If Green could somehow summon the 2016 Game 7 version of himself, the one who made six 3-pointers, scored 32 points and had 15 rebounds and 9 assists, Durant and a healthy Curry could probably take it from there.
But that's not the element from last year that people will bring up this weekend. Get ready for all of the "Warriors blew a 3-1 lead" memes to emerge.
"I'm sure it will come," Green said. "I'm sure that's just the world we live in. But we were up 3-0 [this year]. We weren't up 3-0 last year. So, it's a little different. And at the end of the day, the series is a little different. Thank God I get to play in Game 5."