Forward refuses to back down from Barkley or rivals
fired back at Barkley.
“If you’re not going to punch me in the face when you see me, then shut up,” Green said in his postgame news conference. “It’s no different from someone sitting behind a computer screen tweeting, ‘I’ll knock you out!’ and you never see them in life. Well, he’s seen me a bunch of times and he’ll see me again this year.
“Punch me in the face when you see me, or no one cares what you would have done. You’re old and it is what it is.”
This exchange made a loud splash on social media. (For the record, Barkley apologized Wednesday on a Chicagobased radio show, then again on TNT.) But it doesn’t detract from Green’s superb postseason, in which he’s averaging 13.3 points, 11.4 rebounds and 9 assists. In the first two games against New Orleans, he averaged a triple-double (18 points, 12 rebounds and 11.5 assists).
Green’s full-throttle ways changed the tenor of Tuesday night’s game, after the Warriors started tentatively. That’s when he punctuated baskets with primal screams and confronted virtually any New Orleans player in his vicinity.
It was not the least bit subtle — and it worked.
“I just had to bring some force,” Green said. “We were playing soft in the first quarter. We needed to bring some intensity to the game, and that’s my job.”
Head coach Steve Kerr often says Green is at his best when he plays with an edge, and this was a vivid illustration. Green and Kerr even had an animated conversation on the bench when Green came out of the game at one point.
Kerr embraces Green’s fiery demeanor as long as he stops short of landing a technical foul. His teammates embrace it, in part, because many of them are reserved by nature.
So when Green cranks up the volume, Curry and Co. eagerly come along for the ride.
“We love his intensity, and we rely on that when it’s channeled in productive plays,” Curry said. “He’s been amazing this whole playoff run, taking the challenge defensively, being an initiator on offense, knocking down timely shots.
“When his emotions are like that, and he’s having fun doing what he’s doing, that’s a big pickup for us as a team.”
Green’s 20 points Tuesday night represented his high for a game in these playoffs. He also made several deft passes, but his biggest impact throughout the postseason probably has been as a rebounder.
He’s averaging 15.3 rebounds in his past four games — 18 and 19 in the final two games of Golden State’s first-round series against San Antonio, then 15 and nine in the first two Pelicans games.
Those are big numbers for any player, but especially for an undersized power forward listed at 6-foot-7. Kerr thinks Green is closer to 6-5, which makes his success against the game’s giants — such as Davis at 6-10 — all the more remarkable.
“It’s everything: competitive desire, incredibly long arms, very strong legs,” Kerr said. “He kind of beats people to the spot and uses his strength, and his length comes into play. And then he yells and screams and intimidates and all of the above.”
Green’s rebounding frequently leads to offense, thanks to his ballhandling skills. Witness one play midway through the fourth quarter Tuesday night, when he corralled a defensive rebound, raced downcourt and made a precise bounce pass to Kevin Durant as he cut through the lane.
Durant was fouled and made both free-throw tries, stretching Golden State’s lead to eight.
Rebounding is nothing new for Green, who long ago learned the value of crashing the boards. He led the Big Ten in rebounding as a senior at Michigan State in 2011-12, averaging 10.6 per game.
Then-Detroit Pistons executive Joe Dumars told Green that rebounding, unlike shooting and ball-handling, almost always translates from college to the pros. That has proven prophetic in Green’s case.
“I’ve rebounded my whole life,” he said.
His inspiration growing up in Saginaw, Mich., was Detroit center Ben Wallace. Green called Wallace his “favorite rebounder, bar none,” even if Green often draws comparisons to Dennis Rodman, another undersized power forward.
Wallace was a 6-9 center who impressed young Green with the way he gobbled up rebounds.
“He was a ball magnet,” Green said. “He just relentlessly pursued every offensive rebound, every defensive rebound. Ben was chucking people so hard going through the paint that guys almost wouldn’t even challenge him. It was just the force he played with, rebounding.”
That somehow sounds familiar.