Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors had their season ended by the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. In the Game 6 defeat, Green got into a bit of an altercation with Lakers guard Dennis Schroder.
Following the season-ending loss for the Dubs, Green smoothed things over with Schroder in the comments of an Instagram post, encouraging the Lakers to go win an NBA Championship.
“WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS!!!” Schroder wrote, followed by purple and gold heart emojis. “One of the biggest competitors out there is [Draymond Green]!!! Much respect to you [flower emoji] HOF.”
Green responded with kind words for the German guard.
“Much love and respect for you bro!” he replied. “Changed the series! Go finish the job [two praying emojis].”
Draymond and Dennis show love to each other after a hard fought series ✊
In the first half of Friday’s meeting, the two started jawing back and forth, leading to Green holding the game ball right against Schroder’s face. Each player was assessed a technical foul on the play, leading to Schroder being ejected, as it was his second of the night.
Dennis Schroder was assessed a technical foul for taunting Draymond Green.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, L.A. went on to coast to a 122-101 blowout victory and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they’ll face off against the Denver Nuggets.
Draymond Green Says Warriors ‘Maxed Out’
While Green may believe that the Lakers can go on to compete for another Larry O’Brien trophy, his feelings about his Warriors were a bit different.
After being eliminated, he told reporters that this season’s group was “not a championship team.”
“I think this group definitely maxed out what we could do,” Green said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “You know, it wasn’t a championship team, we didn’t win it. It sucks, but that’s our reality. That doesn’t mean our core changes. That doesn’t mean our core can’t do it again. Like, they said we couldn’t do it again last year, we did it. They said we’d miss the playoffs this year, we didn’t. But guess what, we don’t do moral victories, so we lost. This was not a championship group as it stands. But we have champions and we’re made up of champions. When you are a champion and you have that mindset, you just go back to the drawing board, retool, and re-figure it out, and go do it again. That’s what’ll be our focus, but it wasn’t a championship group, as we can see as we sit here and the season’s over.”
“This was not a championship group.”
Draymond also believes the Warriors maxed out this season
Steve Kerr Opens Up on Warriors After Elimination
Green’s head coach Steve Kerr planted the seeds of the squad being “maxed out” earlier in the night. He addressed the media prior to the 33-year-old and opened up about his roster’s capability.
“Our guys hung in there, we had a shot, and we couldn’t quite do it,” Kerr explained via NBC Sports Bay Area. “But the better team won. It felt like we were swimming upstream from the beginning. I think we found ourselves down the stretch and in the first round of the playoffs. To be fair, I think this team probably, ultimately, maxed out. I think we were barely in the playoff picture for most of the year. So to make that push, to get there, to win an epic first-round series, and then to give the Lakers a fight in this series and have our chances, that puts us within the top eight teams in the league. That’s probably where we should be. This is not a championship team. If we were, we’d be moving on.”
“This is not a championship team.”
Steve Kerr says the Warriors maxed out by reaching the second round of the playoffs
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Warriors’ Draymond Green Breaks Silence on Dennis Schroder Incident