Green able to keep cool, collect title
In a sense, this NBA Finals business has come full circle for Draymond Green.
“Last year, Game 5 sucked,” the versatile Golden State Warriors forward grumbled to USA TODAY Sports as he strolled through Oracle Arena as a champion Monday night.
Had to bring it up. I mean, the emotional coronation to fete a crown before the home fans could have happened last year with a Game 5 victory. But that was the game Green missed because of a suspension for too many flagrant fouls. The Warriors lost. The series shifted. Green took heat.
He’d all about it again during the playoff run. So now that it’s over? “Getting back here was always a goal, finishing it off,” Green said. “It was an amazing finish.”
Green, 27, is one of the most affable, loquacious players in the NBA. He is rarely at a loss for words and is hardly the type to take back his words — even if they generate controversy, buzz or bulletin board material, as his remarks about the sharpness of Clevelanders did last weekend.
But late Monday, he wanted to make a correction. On the floor at Oracle, in the postgame celebration before the fans, Green talked about getting redemption and learning from your mistakes — an obvious reference to the Game 5 against the Cleveland Cavaliers that he missed last year.
“I said it earlier, but then I thought about it,” Green said. “You don’t get redemption. They won the championship last year, and you can’t take it away.”
Green insisted that this year’s title isn’t more meaningful than the one earned two years ago because the Warriors let one slip away last year. Not everyone agrees with that.
“It’s different just because of what happened last year, to be honest,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “We went through, for lack of a better term, basketball hell in that sense of just being so close to getting the job done and not realizing that goal and having to think about that for an entire year.”
There’s a certain growth that can come with adversity. Maybe for Green — whose fiery edge often sets the tone for the Warriors — it was reflected with a kinder, gentler spirit as a championship loomed.
Friday night, Green passionately argued with officials, trashtalked Cavs players and egged on fans who thought he had been ejected with a second technical foul.
But something was different Monday. Green was still the ultimate multitasker, leading the Warriors with 12 rebounds while dishing off five assists and scoring 10 points. No player on the floor matched his plus-minus ratio of +19.
One of his best plays didn’t even show up on the stat sheet. In the third quarter, Green caught Klay Thompson in midair as Thompson appeared headed for a nasty spill after losing his balance after going airborne in trying to block a shot and toppling over the back of a Cavs player.
Thompson: “He’s been in the weight room.”
Green: “He owes me something. I’ll take a watch like Steph got.”
It’s one thing to come to the aid of a teammate, but Green also was seen helping several Cavaliers players up from the floor at points during the game. He didn’t even protest calls.
That’s not exactly normal behavior from Green, but something got into him — like admonishments from anybody and everybody.
“I talked to my dad, my grandmother, every person I saw walking down the street, my mom, and everybody’s like, ‘ Keep your cool. Don’t argue with” the refs,’ ” Green said. “I had to ask myself, ‘Is it that bad?’
“I’m in a grocery store, guy’s like, ‘Keep your cool!’ I’m like, ‘This must be bad.’ ”
Green said he had a “seminar with myself ” to keep his emotions in check and not worry about the officials. He also received a boost of encouragement from his mother, Mary BabersGreen.
After pregame warm-ups, Green and his mom went through the tunnel, hugging as they talked.
“My thing to Dray is, ‘ Do not give them the ammunition to shoot you with,’ ” Babers- Green told USA TODAY Sports’ Sam Amick. “And that’s just meaning, whatever is being done out there, just deal with it, you know what I’m saying?”
The Game 5 suspension in 2016 was followed by offseason drama in Michigan, as Green was arrested for assault after allegedly slapping a Michigan State football player.
Babers- Green said Green, the youngest of three, essentially has had to mature. Her message? “You’re grown now, Dray. Be grown. You’re a man now.”
The evolution now has another significant marker as Green survived — and won — a Game 5 in the NBA Finals without any unnecessary drama.