Draymond Green wasn’t very good the first time the Warriors and the Suns played this week.
So Friday night at Chase Center, he was the best player on the court for Golden State in one of the Dubs’ most impressive wins of this exceptionally impressive season.
By now you should know that the box score cannot possibly encapsulate everything that Green does to affect winning on the basketball court, and Friday night’s 118-96 win was the perfect example — though the box score numbers looked pretty good.
Green showed, once again, why the Warriors dominated the Western Conference for half a decade and why they could again be the favorites after a two-year playoff hiatus.
With him at the helm of the Warriors’ offense and defense, Golden State is in the best hands. He’s too smart to make the same mistakes two games in a row.
Put top-flight talent that kind of basketball intelligence and drive in a seven-game series and you have the Warriors’ playoff record during the Steve Kerr era.
Friday night was one of Green’s best games of the season. I said that the box score didn’t matter, but he did end the contest two blocks away from the vaunted five-by-five, which has only been done 22 times in NBA history. Green last accomplished the feat in 2015.
Green had nine points, nine rebounds, nine assists, six steals, and three blocks vs. the Suns.
Just as important, he had only two turnovers in the game and put the clamps on Suns center DeAndre Ayton.
Green is simply the best defender in the NBA right now, bar none. And in a season (though perhaps not last night’s game) where referees are correcting past mistakes and giving defenders more leeway to actually, you know, defend, having a player like Green who as a defensive anchor should prove invaluable to the Dubs for the remainder of the season and, especially, the beyond.
After all, that beyond is where Green does his best work.
Friday night’s Warriors-Suns game had a playoff feel, just as Tuesday’s contest in Phoenix did. The two best teams in the NBA faced off for a second time in a week — for the Warriors, it was back-to-back games against the same elite opponent.
Here’s an unsavory truth about the NBA: Rarely do you see both teams actually going hard at each other in a regular-season game. Even rarer is both teams having bespoke defensive game plans for an opponent and a contest. Sure, coaches and players talk about some keys on defense before a game, but most of the time, those keys are thrown out the window when the game starts. The vast majority of regular-season NBA games are two teams playing their games, irrespective of the other team on the court, and simply finding out who has more points at the end.
The Warriors and Suns didn’t play that kind of game on Tuesday or Friday, though. No, there was pride on the line and both teams clearly put in extra preparation and carried extra desire to win heading into both contests.
This was, in a strange way (and to a degree, an unfair way, too, given Phoenix had to play Detroit on Thursday in Arizona), a series — a preview of a presumed Western Conference Finals.
And by now, you should also know that Green doesn’t make the same mistakes twice in a series.
Let’s start with Green’s tremendous offensive performance:
On Tuesday, Green was passive on the offensive end of the court. He didn’t control the tempo or pace of the game as the hub of the Warriors’ offense — he didn’t take the action to the Suns — so Chris Paul, his point guard counterpart on Phoenix, was able to control the contest. Paul took over the game late, ground down the pace of the contest until it was a fine powder, and put the Suns in the best position to win, which they did, even without star wing Devin Booker.
Green watched that game and adapted. From the jump on Friday, he was pushing. He not only moved the ball in the half-court with extra gusto — going full Kevin Love with a near full-court chest pass in the second half — but he also took space when he did not have the ball.
Teams are always going to slag off Green — he’s not a shooter defenses have to respect on the perimeter. But Green doesn’t have to stay on the perimeter in the Warriors’ offense. It might not be a pick-and-roll offense, but there are plenty of screens and — when operating at its best — countless cuts.
So we saw Green cutting to the basket again and again and again on Friday. He spent a great deal of time in the paint, where his effectiveness as a passer was not affected.
The real key to Green’s great game and the Warriors’ win was that No. 23 played without hesitation on Friday. He was decisive in his passing — even the bold attempts — and when he received the ball after one of those cuts, he immediately found a pass or put the ball up.
Green finished the game 6-for-8 from the floor, including a big 3-pointers, but it was his aggression on offense that opened the game for the Warriors. He was playing fast and the Warriors and Suns had no choice but to follow.
The Dubs’ stars might be getting older, but Golden State still needs to play as fast as possible. Yes, there’s the downside of turnovers, but Green and Curry thrive in the chaos and the Warriors’ front office did a marvelous job this past offseason finding high-basketball-IQ players who can handle the fray.
But for the Warriors to play their best, Green has to be the tempo-setter, the accelerator. He was just that on Friday.
And defensively, he turned in a masterpiece.
In the Warriors’ super-switching defense, the Dubs don’t exactly have marks, but you could see the change in defensive emphasis between Tuesday and Friday.
On Tuesday, Green spent less than half of the time he was on the court guarding Ayton. The big man had his way with the Dubs in the contest, particularly as a passer, but he scored six points against Green.
In fact, Green spent more than a quarter of his time on defense Tuesday guarding Paul on the perimeter. Paul scored only once against him and the Suns had a sub-100 offensive rating in those minutes.
But that’s not the best utilization of Green — no, he needs to be down low, where he can both guard the big man (or men) and quarterback the team’s defense.
Sure enough, on Friday, Green defended Ayton on more than half of the possessions when both players were on the court. He only pitched onto Paul for 30 seconds, total, in the game, per the NBA’s Second Spectrum stats database.
The Suns couldn’t do a thing against him.
Ayton was 2-for-6 from the floor with two turnovers, two stolen balls on entry passes, and a blocked shot against when defended by Green Friday. In all, Suns’ players went 2-for-12 from the floor when Draymond was defending them.
There were a number of heroes from Friday’s game. Andrew Wiggins was marvelous on both ends of the floor, and energy players Nemanja Bjelica, Juan Toscano-Anderson, and Gary Payton II flipped the game in the second half. This Steph Curry fellow had a good game, too.
But it was Green who once again set the tone for the Warriors on both sides of the court. We saw playoff Draymond — smart, tenacious, driven — in December. It was a spectacular sight.
It was also a reminder of why the Warriors are 100 percent for real.
We have spent so much time trying to pin what that little extra something was that helped the Warriors dispatch so many teams throughout their playoff runs during the dynastic years.
It’s pride — the fact that the Warriors’ best players, Curry, Klay Thompson, and especially Green, will hold themselves to a higher standard than anyone else in the building. They not only want to win, they expect to win. This is why losses bring out the best in those players in the next game.
That pride is why you can’t kill off the Dubs in a seven-game series unless conditions are perfect.
And while it’s a long time until the playoffs start, we saw that pride in spades on Friday. Don’t forget what it looks like — we’ll be seeing plenty more come the spring.
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