Draymond Green is at his best when he has a chip on his shoulder and he doesn’t let that overwhelm his talent. When he is fueled by someone’s criticism and he plays within himself, Green is a devastating two-way player and playmaker on the offensive end of the floor.
Apparently, Green decided to use some shade that was thrown his way by Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer to inspire him to fill up the box score with 12 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and four steals in Golden State’s 119-111 win over Atlanta earlier this week. The only thing is you can very easily read what Budenholzer said about Green during his pregame press conference as a compliment.
“He’s a unique player,” Budenholzer said, according to ESPN. “He’s so unique, but I don’t know that he’s the guy that you game plan for. He does things just kind of so much on instinct intuitively, defensively, and rebounding and passing. Budenholzer continued,
“You know, I think can you make it harder on him as a passer, can you make it more difficult for him to get the assists? And defensively, it doesn’t matter, you have to take care of the ball every night. He’s good [with] instincts and all those things, but game plan – Curry and Thompson are the guys, and he’s great at finding them and creating opportunities for them. So he’s a big part of their group.”
If you want, it’s easy to take what Budenholzer said as a mix of “you have to contain Curry and Thompson because they can get hot quickly, which isn’t really Green’s game, so you gameplan around them” and “you can’t stop Green when he’s on because he is able to impact the game in a bunch of ways you can’t plan for.”
But Green took this as an insult, telling ESPN “And that’s exactly why they can’t beat us. That’s exactly why they won’t. Don’t game plan for me.”
It’s probably safe to assume that Budenholzer did not mean this as “Draymond is trash, we won’t worry about him.” It’s also probably safe to assume that the Hawks’ gameplan included Green, just not as someone they needed to shut down on offense because of the specific reasons that were laid out above.
Still, Green took this comment and let it fuel him en route to a solid game in a Warriors win. The lesson here, opposing coaches, is that Draymond is really, really good at turning just about anything into inspiration.
(Via ESPN)
