Getty Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors.
With just a few weeks left until the NBA playoffs, the Golden State Warriors need to be at the top of their game. The Western Conference standings are extremely tight, so if Golden State wants to maintain their spot in the playoff race, they need to keep winning games.
They’ve struggled to win on the road all season long, but on Wednesday night, they took down the Dallas Mavericks on the road. Draymond Green played well and made some clutch plays down the stretch. After the game, head coach Steve Kerr praised Green’s defense and ability to get Stephen Curry open for a bucket.
“We got some key stops,” Kerr said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “I thought Draymond was incredible down the stretch defensively. Offensively, he sealed his guy on Steph’s layup with eight seconds left, which was a brilliant play. But I just thought we got key stops when we needed to down the stretch.”
Green’s impact doesn’t usually show up in the box score, but he put up some great stats on Wednesday night. He finished the game with 14 points, four rebounds, eight assists, three steals, and four blocks on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor and 1-of-4 shooting from behind the three-point line.
As for Curry, he also played very well. The Warriors superstar ended the night with 20 points, five rebounds, and 13 assists on 9-of-18 shooting from the floor and 2-of-8 shooting from beyond the three-point arc.
Steve Kerr Sounds Off After Warriors Beat Rockets
For the first time in a long time, the Warriors have won two road games in a row. They took down the Mavericks in Dallas on Wednesday, and on Monday night, they beat the Houston Rockets on the road. After the Rockets game, Kerr spoke about what it meant to finally win a game on the road, as they were on a road losing streak before that.
“Yeah it’s been a long time. I don’t remember the last road game that we won, it’s been a while…” Kerr said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “I actually felt like we played decently in the first three games of this trip. Lost all three. But, had our chances in all three and I liked our effort, I liked a lot of the execution. Ironically, I thought this was the worst of the four games on this trip. But obviously, we were playing a different caliber team. The first three we were battling with all of those teams for the playoffs. Memphis has one of the best records in the league, and Houston has had a rough season. But, they are playing better as of late and have had some good wins. I though we had to come into tonight with a focus that unfortunately wasn’t there, and that was the issue with that first half. But, we eventually got there.”
Klay Thompson Name-Drops Stephen Curry
In addition, Klay Thompson spoke about what went right for the Warriors in their win over Houston.
“I think we didn’t foul. And when we can just get the ball off the rim and go, it opens up everything for us,” Thompson said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “Then, on top of that, we had some great shot-making from Anthony Lamb, and Big K [Jonathan Kuminga] made a nice mid-range move, and Steph obviously doing his thing. But yeah, those were the big components of the fourth quarter surge.”
