Draymond Green gets first ejection of season after sparking Warriors-Suns scuffle

'He was just tweaking all game,' Dillon Brooks said of Green after the game

Nov 3, 2026 at 9:54 am ET • 1 min read

Draymond Green made it to November (barely) before earning his first ejection of the 2026-27 NBA season. 

On Monday night, Green took exception to getting knocked over by Phoenix Suns center Khaman Maluach posting up in transition and got up and tackled Maluach, wrapping him up with both arms and throwing him to the ground -- Maluach still made a basket for an and-1. Dillon Brooks then ran over to confront Green, which unsurprisingly led to a brief scuffle between the two and Green was eventually given two technical fouls and ejected in an eventual Warriors win.

"I was just trying to de-escalate it," Brooks said. "He was just tweaking all game."

The ejection is Green's 31st of his career and he now has three technical fouls this season, tied for the most in the league. Once a player reaches 16 technicals in a season, it triggers an automatic one-game suspension. 

Without Green, the Warriors surged back from a double-digit second-half deficit to get a 116-113 win thanks to Stephen Curry's heroics with 34 points and a huge game off the bench from Charles Bassey, who scored 19 points and pulled down eight rebounds in 22 minutes due to Green's absence. 

Bassey's 19 points in 22 minutes off the bench on Monday night equals Green's 19 points in 159 minutes of play this season. Green does lead the Warriors in assists (6.3 per game), and the offense hums around him with Curry and rookie star Yaxel Lendeborg combining for more than 50 points per game. 

With the win, Golden State improved to 5-3 on the season and now sits in seventh in the Western Conference standings early in the season as the Warriors try to claw their way back to the playoffs for the first time in three seasons.