The Golden State Warriors put together a 2nd-half comeback to fashion a 120-109 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans. Stephen Curry put together 39-points and he got there in his usual way – an impressive barrage of three-pointers and capitalizing on his trips to the free-throw line. Kevon Looney dominated the boards in the third quarter. His offensive rebounds set the warriors up to come away with multiple 2nd-chance points.
But it wasn’t Looney, or even Curry, that provided the spark they needed. It was actually Draymond Green, at the cost of picking up his 17th technical foul of the season. The game was physical all night long, due in large part to Green trying to get in the heads of his opponents. CJ McCollum, Brandon Ingram, and Herbert Jones were all on the receiving end of Green’s antics.
Draymond has a reputation of being an unnecessary nuisance on the court. He’s one of those players that you hate to play against, but would love to play with. After the game, Draymond talked about what drove him to get into it with the Pels players:
“It was perfect. Perfectly executed. We looked dead those first 18 minutes. We had to find some energy somewhere. It wasn’t just going to come, especially after losing the game like we did last game; that can carry over. I felt like it did. I knew we had to do something and do it fast before the game got out of hand.”
Now Green is one technical foul away from facing a one-game suspension, which could be very costly given the state of the Western Conference. His teammates need to ensure they do a better job at keeping Green reeled in, and Curry knows that:
“He knows that guys are backing him up. I’m sure [Green] wouldn’t go out on an island like that if he didn’t have that confidence. … There are times where I got to keep him in check and bring him back in when it’s turning in the wrong direction in the sense of staying focused on just winning.”
These last few games are going to be interesting.
