Draymond Green doesn’t think the Golden State Warriors winning is boring. That doesn’t mean he’s loving what Cleveland is doing to teams in the East, though.
Green addressed claims that the NBA postseason is basically a Rube Goldberg machine designed to set up the Cavaliers/Warriors III on Monday night after the Warriors easily handled the Utah Jazz for their second straight postseason sweep.
When a reporter told Green that the TNT broadcast said the Warriors were boring, he and Kevin Durant were visibly upset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaldeVRPzAw
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,” Green said, as Durant pretended to fall asleep.
To be fair, Green did this to himself. Before Game 4, he told reporters that Cleveland cruising to its own pair of playoff sweeps didn’t interest him.
“I thought teams would compete a little harder,” Green said. “I just watched San Antonio-(Houston). I like to watch good basketball. When you watch Cleveland play, you only watching one side of good basketball. That’s kind of weak. I like watching a good game, not even necessarily that it’s going to be a close game. I like to watch teams playing good basketball. When you watch them, you watch one team playing good basketball and everybody else just…do something. I don’t know what that something is.”
Green was sure to note that unlike the Hawks and Raptors, the Jazz were hanging tough against Golden State, something he reiterated on Monday night in response to the reporter’s question.
“That’s not boring,” Green said of the Jazz, “This team continued to fight. You know, I think the way this team has fought throughout this entire series, I think it was good basketball. You know, they continued to execute their offense.”
Green did circle back to the Eastern Conference playoffs to go back in on the teams Cleveland has dispatched in eight relatively stressless games.
That was just my opinion. I don’t expect everybody’s opinion to be the same as mine. I think Cleveland’s been playing great basketball. You watch them, it’s been amazing. And then you watch the other teams that they’ve been playing against… not so much. So, like, that’s just my opinion though.
Durant had the final word on the matter of opinions.
“You’re not allowed to have an opinion, Draymond,” Durant said. “You’re just supposed to play basketball.”
Charles Barkley did find time to be critical of the level of excitement missing from this NBA postseason. The Inside the NBA crew put a Zamboni in the background of the Jazz’s Gone Fishing image, prompting Barkley to mention the more lively NHL playoffs.
It's fishing time…
The Utah Jazz are #GoneFishin! 🎣 pic.twitter.com/gsTsykE0Xa
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) May 9, 2017
“Speaking of Zambonis,” Barkley said. “Thank God for the NHL playoffs. That’s what I’ve been watching instead of these blowouts.”
Barkley is right there — two Game 7s are slated on the ice for Wednesday night. Maybe Barkley, LeBron, and Draymond can get together to watch those while they wait for their opponents in the Conference Finals.
