Getty Draymond Green, Warriors
The Warriors had a disappointing outcome on Tuesday when they faced off against the hottest team in the NBA, the Phoenix Suns, winners of a franchise-best 18 straight games. On Friday, Golden State gets a chance at revenge, as the Suns will travel to San Francisco to play the Dubs at the Chase Center.
The loss moved the Warriors into a tie for the best record in the league with the Suns at 18-3 (Phoenix is now 19-3), but for Golden State star Draymond Green, there was a lot of positive to be taken from the game, even as the team’s juggernaut offense was held to just 96 points.
Green, speaking on his new podcast, the Draymond Green Show, started by giving a hat-tip to the Suns.
“You gotta give Phoenix a lot of credit,” he said, “their defense was very stellar, I think they did an incredible job on everybody, making it tough. They made the plays they needed to make offensively.”
But then Green pointed out that the Warriors did a lot to shoot themselves in the foot in the game, and that the Suns should not expect that to be something Golden State does repeatedly.
“Saying all of that, we were on the road with 23, 24 turnovers (22, actually),” Green said. “Yet with two-and-a-half minutes to go (actually, it was 4:12 left in the fourth quarter), I (missed) a left-hand layup, streaking down the floor with a chance to cut it to one. And so, in saying that, I love where we are still as a team. I am not sure you’ll find a game where myself, Steph (Curry) and Wigs (Andrew Wiggins) will play worse than we played (Tuesday) night. And we still had a chance to win that game right down the stretch.”
Warriors Stars Showed Cold Shooting vs. Suns
Green did point out that the Suns had some issues themselves in the second half, namely the absence of star guard Devin Booker, who went out with a hamstring injury and will miss a few games for Phoenix. But the combination of turnovers and terrible shooting—the Warriors made just 41.9% of their shots against Phoenix—is not likely to happen again.
Mikal Bridges rejects Curry at the rim 🚫
Star guard Stephen Curry, harried by breakout defensive star Mikal Bridges, was 4-for-21 from the field and small forward Andrew Wiggins was 4-for-12. Those two are shooting 46.8% for the season, but made only 24.2% on Tuesday.
“I thought our defense was pretty good in the first half,” Green said. “I thought we definitely could have cleaned up some things, and then obviously in the second half as well. But again, it all goes back to, you have 23 turnovers, can you get your defense set? How many times did we get a chance to actually set our defense? You couple that with the shooting nights that we had and you’re kind of in transition all night.”
Warriors Defense Held vs. Suns
What was impressive to Green, and what he hopes the team carries into Friday, was that the Suns normally score 112.3 points per game, fourth in the NBA, but were held to just 104 by Golden State.
“I like where our defense is, I think we’ll continue to get better, and I think for the most part, with all that went on, we still gave up 104 points,” Green said.