Mistake gives Dubs upper hand
Celtics forward took Green’s bait and now Warriors forward has a mental edge
SAN FRANCISCO » Celtics forward Jaylen Brown is playing in his first NBA Finals, and he made a rookie mistake after Game 2 Sunday night.
Warriors forward Draymond Green came out with the intensity of a man whose team was playing for its life in Game 2, because, well, they were. No team has ever come back from 2-0, with both of the losses at home, and the Warriors weren’t trying to find out if they could be the first.
So Green attacked from the opening tip. He made the Celtics feel him and his team’s desperation. His physicality set a tone for the game, a 107-88 Golden State win.
After the game, Brown made it clear how effective Green’s performance was.
He answered questions for seven minutes. The vast majority of those questions and answers regarded the officiating in Game 2 and Green’s physicality.
This is chum in the water for Green heading into Game 3.
“He’s going to try to muck the game up, try to raise the level of intensity,” Brown said. “We’ve got to raise ours. I feel like they got away with a lot tonight, but we’ve got to come ready to play, come ready to meet that physicality on both ends.”
Brown made it clear that the Celtics were “just trying to play basketball,” as if the Warriors were playing a different game at Chase Center.
“It’s the NBA Finals. You come to play basketball,” Brown said. “I know what Draymond is going to do. I know what he’s going to try to do. They switched the lineup. They tried to put him on me, be physical, muck the game up, pull me, grab me and overall raise the intensity. I feel like they got away with a lot of stuff tonight, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of the next game.”
Later, he continued in describing his secondquarter scuffle with Green: “That’s what Draymond Green does. He’ll do whatever it takes to win. He’ll pull you, he’ll grab you, he’ll try to muck the game up because that’s what he does for their team. It’s nothing to be surprised about. Nothing I’m surprised about. He raised his physicality to try to stop us and we’ve got to raise ours.”
How can Green view this as an invitation to do anything but more than the same in Game 3 and beyond?
“You have to send a message,” Green said. “Guys follow me … If I’m not sending a message, who is sending that message? I am not going to just come and sit in front of y’all and hold myself accountable and not back it up. You got to be about what you talk about, and I take pride in that.”
Brown’s postgame comments — while punctuated with “we’re looking forward to the next game” — came across as whining at best and soft at the worst.
This comes just one game after it was the Celtics who, to their credit and without incident, were the aggressors, pushing Golden State all around the court in Game 1, coming out on top on the scoreboard, and when it came to physicality.
Now, Brown might be justified in such a stance against Green, but to make it public in a press conference is a different ballgame.