Draymond Green Tore Into The Celtics, Who ‘Are Who We Thought They Were,’ After They Lost To The Heat

There are plenty of reasons why the Boston Celtics fell in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami Heat. Some of the obvious ones: Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle on the opening play of the game and was not right after that, Jaylen Brown struggled to get much of anything going, Robert Williams was sick, the Heat shot lights out from three, Caleb Martin had the game of his life, etc.

On the most recent episode of his podcast, Draymond Green submitted his own theory for why Boston wasn’t able to get the job done with its season and a spot in the NBA Finals on the line. Basically, Green posited that the team that took the floor and laid an egg on Monday night simply “are who we thought they were.”

“The Boston Celtics are who we thought they were,” Green says with a smile on his face. “They got to the moment and they did not look like they were ready for the moment. All of a sudden, all the shots were short again. All of a sudden they looked like they couldn’t play basketball with their left hand again. All of a sudden, they looked like exactly who we thought they were.”

Green went on to say that he saw some similarities between this Celtics team and the team from “the closeout game last season,” which is presumably a reference to the Golden State Warriors’ 103-90 win over them in Game 6 of the 2022 NBA Finals where Boston trailed by as many as 22 points and Golden State opened up a major lead by going on a 21-0 run across the first and second quarters. It has gotten to the point, Green says, that “you start to question, like, does that become your M.O.?”