After benching, Green answers the call
The Warriors were up 12 points with just under five minutes remaining in the game. Draymond Green smelled blood in the water.
The Celtics called timeout, the referee's whistle blew and Green decided to keep playing defense on Jayson Tatum — no chance he'd allow the Celtics star to see the ball splash through the net, even during a stoppage. So Green kept on him with an arm up and blocked Tatum's path back to the bench. Soon a sea of Celtic green surrounded them and officials pulled Green away.
“In the NBA after timeouts, guys try to get shots up. They didn't want me to shoot the ball. I just said, (expletive) it,” Tatum said.
The kerfuffle was inconsequential — no technical fouls were issued — but it told us everything about Green's mindset in the Warriors' 104-94 Game 5 win on Monday. After a self-described “atrocious” Game 3 and an offensively challenged Game 4 performance, Green not only bounced back, but set the tone for one of the Warriors' best defensive games in these Finals yet.
Tatum might have brushed off the altercation, but the Warriors' and Green's aggression had Boston out of sorts in a pivotal fourth quarter the Warriors won by nine points — an answer to the Celtics erasing a double-digit deficit with a 35-point third quarter.
“I felt more like myself, aggressive on both ends of the ball, but I felt a little more like myself in Game 4 as well, after an atrocious Game 3,” Green said. “But you've just got to continue to build. Tonight is a great start, and I look forward to going into Game 6 with the same energy and effort.”
One statistic explains what Green and the Warriors did defensively to suppress Boston's scoring: Forcing turnovers. The Celtics had 18 turnovers on Monday that the Warriors turned into 22 points.
Jaylen Brown had five turnovers, Tatum and Marcus Smart each had four. Plenty of those came on pressure from Green, who forced Brown into two by applying pressure on his drives. Once, Brown drove into Green and threw a bad pass right to Gary Payton II, resulting in a transition layup for Andrew Wiggins on a feed from Steph Curry. In another instance, Green stayed in front of Brown in transition, forcing him into a bad layup attempt out of bounds.