Green teaches youngsters to play hard
Draymond Green accepts that this is going to be a teaching year.
During Thursday’s 141122 seasonopening loss to the Clippers, Green taught the Warriors’ young roster about playing through pain.
Green endured an elbow contusion in the first three minutes of the game. After trying to shake off the injury and failing to hide his grimace while being checked by the medical staff on the bench, he went to the locker room for further evaluation.
Nine minutes later, he returned to the floor with a bulky tape job on his right elbow and posted 11 points, four rebounds, three assists and a series of gritty plays.
In one sequence, Green drew a charge on Montrezl Harrell, despite the 240pound bulldozer slamming Green’s back and elbow to the hardwood.
On another, Green cut off a drive by Kawhi Leonard and forced the Clippers’ forward to pass to Patrick Patterson in the corner. Then, Green circled around and blocked Patterson’s shot attempt at the rim.
You may not be able to teach a player to have a motor, but you can demonstrate some of the little things it takes to become a fivetime allNBA defender — even when your elbow is throbbing.
“I don’t think you can necessarily teach motor or tell someone how to have a mo
“You standards can have of what’s acceptable and what isn’t.”
Draymond Green, Warriors forward
tor,” Green said. “That’s sort of who you are. But you can have standards of what’s acceptable and what isn’t. I think that’s kind of what it’s about.
“Everyone doesn’t have a crazy motor. That’s just the nature of the game we play, but the expectations and the responsibilities you hold guys to is different. If you know you’re held to a certain level of accountability, then you kind of rise to that.”
Early in the season, these are the kinds of lessons Green will espouse, because the intricacies of the team’s defensive schemes will take time, and Green says he simply hasn’t had enough time with eight of the Warriors’ 14 players being younger than 24.
A fiery competitor, Green says he’s trying to be more patient this season as he doesn’t have Andre Iguodala or Shaun Livingston to offer calm wisdom in the locker room anymore.
“You know, Andre and Shaun are super old, but they were just kind of that stabilizing force for us,” Green said. “They’ve been through some of everything, whether it was basketball, whether it was injuries, whether it was family, investments. … Steph, Klay and I were running rampant, and they’d just come in and calm us down. Whatever it was, we could turn to them for anything. We don’t really have that anymore.
“We’ll have to be those guys.”
For Game 1, Green’s lesson plan was how to keep playing hard when your body doesn’t want to cooperate.