Intense Green’s emotional fire big part of his skill set
OAKLAND — Early this season, as Draymond Green still was getting to know the Warriors’ new coach, he barked at Steve Kerr on the sideline during a game, then worried he had crossed the line.
“I walked up to him and said, ‘ My bad.’ And he’s like, ‘ You’re good. I love that fire,’ ” Green recalled.
Well, the fire has been unleashed, and the Warriors — up 2- 0 in their first- round NBA playoff series against the New Orleans Pelicans — are far better for it.
“I love it. I love the edge. I love the passion,” Kerr said. “We both know we’re in the same fight together and we’re coming from maybe two different perspectives, but with the same goal. It’s healthy and it’s fun.”
Green gave a nationwide TNT audience a look at the full range of his skills— and his bark — in the Warriors’ 97- 87 win over New Orleans in Game 2 on Monday.
Player and coach had words after Kerr pulled Green from the game to give him a rest with 3: 55 left in the first quarter.
“I was over there hot,” Green said afterward. The two sorted things out and Green was back on the floor 3 minutes later.
Green wound up with 14 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, three steals and two blocked shots, and outplayed young Pelicans superstar Anthony Davis in the fourth quarter, allowing the Warriors to pull away. All this despite spraining his left ankle twice during the game.
“You have to have guys who can put up a fight,” Kerr said afterward, “and Draymond put up an incredible fight.”
Kerr acknowledges he had no idea what he was getting with Green when he took the job. He imagined, in fact, that David Lee would retain the power forward job as soon as he was healthy, and expected the two might share minutes.
“I really didn’t anticipate him seizing the position,” Kerr said. “That’s all him. That’s his effort and his impact on the team.”
The impact is best defined by Green’s relentless intensity. Ask Green and Draymond Green is an emotional player. “That’s a skill, to play with the intensity I play with,” said the Warriors forward, who has averaged 14.5 points and 12 rebounds in the playoffs.
MONEY GREEN
Draymond Green’s first- round series performances:
Gm
1
2
Result
Playoff averages 42
Season averages
31.5
11.7 he’ll tell you it’s much more than an attitude. It’s a skill.
“Take Steph’s handles away from him, I don’t think he’ll be that same player,” Green said of teammate Stephen Curry’s ballhandling. “That’s just a part of who I am. I play with a lot of intensity. That’s a skill, to play with the intensity I play with.”
That his intensity sometimes manifests itself in loud, public exchanges is just fine with his coach.
“You need guys like that. You have to have that edge,” Kerr said. “Particularly on our team, we’re a pretty quiet group. I love that he’s loud.”
Green said people connect in different ways, but
6.0
3.0
Blk
2.0
1.3 that he and Kerr understand each other.
“If you look back, he played with that same fire I play with. It’s not like we’re polar opposites,” Green said. “Sometimes it’ll clash a little bit. It never clashes out of disrespect. It’s more respect than anything.
“We both get each other fired up. I’m mean fired up. It’s fun. I don’t take it personal when he yells at me and screams and goes crazy, even if it’s not my fault. I might get mad, but I don’t take it personal. And he don’t take it personal when I say something to him.”
The passion is a family trait, Green said, and no one exhibits it more than his mother, Mary Babers- Green, especially when she is firing off her in- game thoughts on Twitter. “She is something special,” said Green, explaining he was up until 4 in the morning after Game 2 reading all her tweets.
The key to making relationships work, Green said, is to adjust to each person. He felt like he could say anything to former coach Mark Jackson but the tone was different because Jackson is an ordained minister who does not curse.
Without the verbal cuffs, his exchanges with Kerr are more like the relationship he formed with Tom Izzo, his coach atMichigan State.
The details don’t matter, Green said.
“We’ve got one common goal, and that’s to win a championship.”