In this solo post‑game monologue, Warriors forward Draymond Green breaks down the recent matchup against the Phoenix Suns. He praises the electric, playoff‑like atmosphere of the number‑1‑vs‑number‑2 West showdown, but notes the Warriors’ 23‑24 turnovers as a primary factor in the loss. Green commends Phoenix’s stellar defense, especially the efforts of Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges, and Jae Crowder, and reflects on Paul’s status as a winner despite never winning a championship, drawing parallels to Jimmy Butler. He evaluates the Warriors’ own defensive showing—solid in the first half but hampered by constant transition due to turnovers—and highlights the team’s resilience, including his own late layup attempt. Green concludes by looking forward to the Friday home rematch, expressing confidence that the Warriors will adjust and improve.
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We are going to talk about last night's game, the Warriors versus the Suns, which I guess people may have enjoyed it. I didn't quite enjoy it that much, but nonetheless, I did enjoy the atmosphere. It was an incredible atmosphere. It was playoff-like atmosphere. And you know, it's the ones that you love to play in and you get up for. Obviously, Tuesday night in the association, number 1 versus number 2 in the West, in the NBA actually. You know, a matchup that we could definitely see sometime down the line in May. So it was a very important game. Obviously Phoenix took the game. My assessments on the game, I think number 1, we— Draymond Green. You gotta give Phoenix a lot of credit. Their defense was very stellar last night. I think they did an incredible job on everybody, making it tough. They made the plays they needed to make down the stretch offensively. And in saying all of that, we were on the road with 23 turnovers, 23, 24 turnovers. And yet with 2 and a half minutes to go, I had a left-hand layup streaking down the middle of the floor. With a chance to cut it to 1. And so in saying that, I love where we are still as a team. I think, I'm not sure you will find a game where myself, Steph, and Wiggs will play worse than we played last night. And like I said, we still had a chance to win that game right down the stretch, 3 minutes to go. Gotta give a lot of credit to Chris Paul. He did what he, what Chris Paul does. He carries his teams. Dee Book went out towards the end of the first half and Chris Paul just did what he does. He carries teams, he makes timely plays, he gets everybody involved. He picks and chooses when he needs to get his shot going. And he did that last night. And one thing about Chris Paul that's interesting and other guys in this league is when you talk about winners, we all tend to turn to the guys who's won championships. And don't get me wrong, winning championships is extremely important. Like, You wanna win champ— you play sports, you wanna win championships. It's the holy grail. It's what we're all playing for. You wanna be the last team standing. But Chris Paul is one of those guys that's interesting where he has not won a championship. Last year was his first year, year 16, I think, of playing in the NBA Finals. But I personally think Chris Paul is a winner. Like he wins year in and year out. I mean, they sent him to OKC. Yeah. To pretty much lie on his deathbed. Not only did he not lie on his deathbed, he took that team to the playoffs. Because he did so well, Sam Presti worked with him to get him to a situation that he wanted to be in. And now we see what he's doing with the Phoenix squad. And so that's just an interesting thought that I have. And when I'm just sitting and dissecting basketball, dissecting careers, dissecting resumes, that's one that's always interesting for me. And like I said, that's Chris Paul, uh, but that's not only Chris Paul. There are other guys in this league, um, who— Jimmy Butler, who's won everywhere he's gone, never won a championship, but he's a winner. Like, he's won— he's made teams win everywhere he's gone. And so, you know, that's, that's just an interesting thing to me, especially when you get into the debate of, uh, Hall of Fame and all-time greats and NBA 75 list, all of these things. That's an interesting one for me. But like I said, back to the game, I thought our defense was pretty good in the first half. Thought we could have definitely cleaned up some things. And then obviously in the second half as well. But again, it all goes back to you have 23 turnovers. You can't, can you get your defense set? Like how many times do we get get a chance to actually set our defense. You couple that with the shooting nights that we had, you're kind of in transition all night. And so I like where our defense is. I think we'll continue to get better. And I think for the most part, like I said, with all of that that went on last night, we still gave up 104 points. And granted they didn't have Dee Book in the second half, But that's a good basketball team, you know, and they just keep it rolling. And that's what they did last night. DeAndre Ayton played really well. I thought he was extremely aggressive from the very beginning of the game. He continued that on throughout the entire game. He had a really good game. Jay Crowder had a good game. Struggled with, he had a couple threes in the first quarter and then it was in foul trouble for pretty much the rest of the half. But hit some big threes in that second half last night that kind of catapulted them to the win. So they, you know, they had a mixture of guys playing well. Mikal Bridges defensively was an animal. I mean, he was incredible defensively. All their guys were really good defensively. They were really good defensively as a team. But Mikal Bridges, who's the head of the snake for them, I thought he did an incredible job defensively of just chasing Steph around, being in passing lanes, clogging up the lane when he had the opportunity. I thought he did a really good job. Yeah. That takes us to Friday's matchup, which I am obviously excited about. Home to home, they were home, now we got an opportunity of them coming into our house. You never wanna lose two in a row, so you wanna right the ship. Our guys also know what to expect now. Although I thought guys really stepped up to the challenge, but you've seen this team now, you know what to expect. And coming back Friday, we expect a better outcome.
