In this YouTube episode, Warriors forward Draymond Green breaks down the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, offering detailed praise for Nikola Jokic’s skill and the strategic advantage of putting him in foul trouble. He explains the Warriors’ lineup adjustments, highlighting the return of Steph Curry to the starting lineup, Jordan Poole’s strong play, and Kevon Looney’s durability and defensive support. Green emphasizes the Nuggets’ physicality and dominance on the boards, noting how rebounding impacts the Warriors’ transition game, and he lauds Steph Curry’s second‑half takeover and Klay Thompson’s unexpected rebounding surge. The conversation shifts to fan‑submitted questions: Green compares Jayson Tatum and Luka Dončić, emphasizing their differing roles and Tatum’s defensive leap, while refusing to rank them definitively. He recounts his favorite playoff series—beating the Houston Rockets—citing the Rockets’ self‑defeating narrative about beating the Warriors. Finally, Green shares a nostalgic fantasy of playing with and defending against Shaquille O’Neal, reflecting on his childhood fandom. Throughout, Green’s tone is conversational, enthusiastic, and occasionally defensive, providing insider insights into team strategy, player evaluation, and personal anecdotes.
Questions this video answers
Green says he doesn’t rank them definitively because they play different roles, but acknowledges Tatum’s defensive leap and growth, while still viewing Luka as absolutely incredible and impactful.
Green cites the Warriors’ series against the Houston Rockets as his favorite, highlighting the Rockets’ self‑defeating narrative about beating the Warriors and the emotional satisfaction of that victory.
Green chooses Shaquille O’Neal, saying he’d love to play alongside him and also try to guard him, reflecting his childhood fandom.
Chapters
I would like to say congratulations to the Denver Nuggets on an incredible series, an incredible year. That's a very good ball club missing 2 of their top 3 or 4 players, depending on how you want to look at it. So, gotta take your hats off to them. All of those guys played well. Nikola Jokic. Let's start there. Let's just start there. Pay the big man some respect. Give him the respect he's due. Absolutely incredible player. I mean, 5 games. First off, I'm happy it was only 5 games. I wish it could have been 4. Could have saved me a few bumps and bruises. But man, he is absolutely incredible. I mean, he takes advantage of every little slight wrong movement you make. And it's, I mean, it is absolutely—
Draymond Green.
Astonishing. I mean, his touch around the rim. If he gets the ball on the rim and it doesn't go in, I'm shocked because he has such incredible touch. It just bounces around the rim and it goes in. I mean, extremely incredible player. I think ultimately, um, down— we were able to get him in foul trouble this game. It's funny because when he took the first foul, I was looking like, hmm, I wonder if we're going to be able to get him in foul trouble. And then sure enough, a second foul came shortly after that. There was a third and a fourth, and he had to come out of the game. And I think, you know, for us, we were able to take advantage of that. Now, it didn't show up in the lead per se, but we were able to get the game at our pace once he went out the game. A couple things I want to talk about. Number one is the lineup change. You know, that lineup has been the talk of the playoffs for us at least. And we started with it tonight. You know, like we've been saying, Steph Curry's been great off the bench, but you don't, you know, once the minute restriction is gone, you don't keep Steph Curry on the bench. You get Steph Curry back into the starting lineup. And Jordan Poole has been playing incredibly well. And so we thought we wanted to start with that lineup and we actually got off to a pretty decent start. I think the change came once I picked up the early foul because now I have to guard Joker. And with one early foul, just can't really be as aggressive 'cause I understood how important it was for me to stay on the floor. But definitely started with that lineup. Thought we got off to a pretty good start. But Looney played really big minutes tonight, as he has all year. As you know, he's 82-game Loon. Gotta shout out the boy. Been through, what, 3 hip surgeries, I think? All types of issues and has gotten his body to the point where it could take 82 games plus some more. Absolutely incredible. And Loon was huge for us in this series. So shout out to Loon. Keep going, big dog. Love and appreciate your journey. But also more importantly, the great teammate that you are. And one thing I think people don't understand about Looney is if you paid attention at all to the quotes of this series, one of the quotes from the Denver Nuggets coach Mike Malone was that Draymond's not guarding anyone. He's just a free safety out there. And I know some people saw that and took it as disrespect. Like, what? Like— Yeah. "Whaddya mean he's not guarding anyone?" I didn't take it as disrespect, and I took it the way I thought he meant it, which was a compliment. And what he's saying is kinda, "This guy is just roaming around, mucking up things, messing up our offense." And when Looney is on the floor, it really opens the door for me to do that. It really opens the floor for me to roam, muck some stuff up, take teams outta what they're trying to get to. 'Cause Loon, he knows how to read just the random stuff that I do. On the defensive end at times, and he'll cover for me. And so, uh, Loon has been absolutely incredible and one— is one guy that I love to play next to because he, he'll cover up all the things that I may leave open when I go take a risk. And I think that's an important part of our defense. Um, the Nuggets in this game continued to be super physical in their battle. Uh, they completely destroyed us on the boards. Now, We cleaned that up there in the second— in the fourth quarter, I'm sorry. But they— I don't know what the final tally was, but they absolutely annihilated us on the boards. And even if we were able to pull the tally closer, that's not indicative of what they did the entire game on the boards. So you got to give them credit there. And that's what teams are going to try to do, right? They're going to try to be physical. They're going to try to beat us up on the offensive glass because they know Their best bet is to go for the offensive boards because once we get out in transition, we have so many weapons and we're pushing the floor and that, it's pushing the ball and that's what really opens up the floor for us. So I understand it, but you know, we were able to pull it back or dial it back, dial some of their rebounding back there in that fourth quarter. And we got out and we ran and we took advantage of cross matches and we're able to get it back to the brand of basketball that you saw through games 1 through 3 and some in that second half in game 4 as well. So we knew we needed to do that in order to win the game and we were able to get back to that. Last thing I'll say about our game was Steph Curry was absolutely incredible. Took over the second half, got every matchup he wanted. And you know what I loved most is he got the 3 going, but then he said, forget the 3, I'm gonna go to the hole every single time. And he started getting to the cup and that put the game away. And I mean, it was absolutely incredible. It's, you know, I've been seeing the banter of, you know, clowns talking about, oh, Steph Curry doesn't show up in big games and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, shut up. That don't even make sense. But nonetheless, number 30 went back into the lineup and he carried us home and it was absolutely incredible. And one more thing I need to point out, Klay Thompson, 9 rebounds. See, what y'all need to understand is we used to be on Klay Thompson. He come out with 1 rebound, 2 rebounds. Like, Klay, you gotta rebound, you gotta rebound. And now for him, I was the one with 2 rebounds and Klay was the guy with 9 rebounds. And it was absolutely incredible to see, especially with us being small. We need guys coming back in and cleaning up those rebounds. And Klay was absolutely incredible. And you know, that was one of the keys for us. And that was one of the things we had to improve throughout the course of the game to actually get to a space of where we could take over the game. And eventually come out on top, putting that series away and moving on to the next one.
Do you think Tatum has surpassed or is close to Luka in terms of overall impact due to his leap on the defensive end?
Jackson changed his last name, y'all. He wanted to get a question off.
He didn't want to— I didn't write it, I swear.
And this is a Boston question. Come on now. Like, we all know it's you, Jackson. Come on, man. But Jackson, I'll answer your question.
All right, let's hear it.
Do I think Tatum has surpassed Luka in terms of overall impact? Impact because of his leap on the defensive end. Who said Luka was in front of Tatum to begin with?
Jackson Sequist did apparently. I would've agreed before, before Tatum has, has locked up KD like this and before Tatum averaged 7.5 assists per game this last series. Luka, Luka is, is the man.
Luka is absolutely incredible. I just was asking the question like who, who, who said that? But no, Luka's absolutely incredible. And his impact on any game he's in is—
Phew.
JT, has he passed him? I don't know. I don't really get into the whole comparing guys. They're two totally different players. They play two totally different roles on their team outside of just being the main scoring threat. I thought JT took a huge leap in this series for sure with the way he defended and with the way he passed the ball. He didn't settle for many bad shots. I thought he definitely took a leap in terms of his growth, but that's also the same leap that I saw coming and playing USA Basketball with him. So I'm not surprised by that leap at all. He's been absolutely incredible and he's been, you know, he's continuing to get older. Like I said before, we've been watching these young guys since they were 19 coming into the NBA, making it into the— Yeah. Eastern Conference Finals and then expecting that every year. And the reality is they're just going through their progression and getting better as, as they age. And now I think JT's what, 23, 20, 24 years old? He's starting to put it all together. And so I'm not surprised by that leap at all because one thing I knew is if he commits his mind on the defensive end, the way he can move and with his length, he's gonna be an incredible defender. And he's starting to show that now and it's making a huge difference in their team.
Last one. And again, as I'm going to say every episode, submit these questions on Twitter, hashtag the Draymond Green Show. That's where I'm going to pull the questions from every episode. Last one for today from Caleb Bennett at Bennett Brawler. Excluding the finals, what was your favorite playoff series that you've been a part of and why?
Caleb, I have to be honest with you. There's nothing that compared to the NBA finals, but My favorite, my absolute favorite playoff series was when we beat the Houston Rockets. And the year before, KD went out of the lineup and they were like, oh, I mean the year before Chris Paul went out of the lineup and they're like, oh, well we miss Chris Paul. That's why we lost, running back. We're built to beat the Warriors, blah, blah, blah. And then next year KD gets hurt and they still lose. And that for me was one of my absolute playoff series because for them to be so outspoken about, we built this team all year, we built this team literally just to beat the Warriors. They get the opportunity, we lose one of our top players and they still go on to lose the series. "Y'all told us last year when Chris Paul went out, that's why y'all lost. Well, we not making that same excuse." And then they blew it up. You know, to see a team built to beat you and then it get blown up, clearly didn't work. So that was my favorite series by far, just because they were so outspoken about it. Couldn't actually do it. And then, "All right, let's get Clint Capella outta here." And that was the first domino to fall. And every other one fell after that. And now the Houston Rockets are, 19 and 20 and 62.
Which player from NBA history would you want to play with and one you want to play defense against?
One player from NBA history that I would want to play basketball with. I think the player that I would wanna play basketball with and play defense on at the same time as Shaq. I grew up a Shaq fan. Like I had Orlando Magic nightlight, the zip-up onesie, like an iron-on Shaq jersey. I was a huge Shaq fan. So if I could play basketball with Shaq, and then if I could also guard Shaq so I can shut everyone up with the, "Oh, you can't guard Shaq." Of course I can't guard Shaq, but I can get a stop. Like I ain't saying I'm gonna stop him repeatedly, but I think at some point I'm going to get a stop. But I would love that challenge though. Like Shaq, Shaq, like I said, he's my favorite player growing up. If I had the opportunity to guard him, like that's everything for me. If I had the opportunity to play basketball on Shaq's team, that's everything for me. So that's an easy one for me. Shaq D's, of course, that's my guy. So if, you know, everybody said, "Oh man, if you played in the league back then, you wouldn't be able to guard Shaq or you wouldn't be able to guard King." Shut up. I'm guarding Shaq.
