In this episode of the Draymond Green Show, Draymond Green breaks down the Golden State Warriors’ Game 5 victory that clinched the series against the Denver Nuggets. He opens by congratulating the Nuggets and lauding Nikola Jokic’s skill and the impact of his foul trouble on the game’s momentum. Green then shifts focus to DeMarcus Cousins, praising his resilience, pick‑and‑roll defense, and the pivotal role he played in Game 4 and the series. The core of the analysis covers the Warriors’ lineup adjustments – moving Steph Curry back into the starting lineup, Jordan Poole’s hot shooting, and Kevon Looney’s durability and defensive anchoring that allows Green to roam as a “free safety.” Green discusses the physical rebounding battle, noting the Nuggets’ dominance on the boards and how the Warriors responded in the fourth quarter. He highlights Gary Payton II’s clutch three‑point shot and defensive hustle, Jordan Poole’s development under coach Jama, and Steph Curry’s second‑half takeover that silenced critics. Finally, Green points out Klay Thompson’s unexpected rebounding surge, credits the coaching staff, and looks ahead to the next playoff series. The monologue blends player praise, tactical insight, and personal anecdotes, offering a comprehensive, insider perspective on the Warriors’ win.
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What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. This is the 25th episode and we are recording this starting at 11:32 PM Wednesday night after a big dubs win closed the series out onto the next series. But Before we move on, actually, 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 wanna 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 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 gonna 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 outta 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. Gotta give a lot of credit to DeMarcus Cousins. DeMarcus Cousins played an incredible game, actually an incredible series. He was a huge problem for us this series. And, you know, for a guy who's been through so much, for a guy who spent significant time this year, not even on the roster. Teams will be absolutely crazy if he's not on the roster going into next year. Because if you think DeMarcus Cousins can't help your team win, he helped them win game 4 and almost carried them to a game 5 win. And so absolutely incredible. I have so much respect and love for DeMarcus and the journey that he's been on and the fact that he has not given up. So I hope— I hope— My hope for DeMarcus is that teams can see past who he used to be, see the maturity in who he is, and more importantly, see the impact that he's had, that he has when he's on the court. You know, funny thing, I saw DeMarcus after game 4 and I said, we keep putting you in pick and rolls, but I don't understand it 'cause you actually guard the pick and roll really well. And that was one thing that I actually noticed when he came to play with us, was that a lot of people try to put him in pick and rolls as if he's a liability. And he's actually not at all. He gets up on the screen. He has incredible hands to get into the passing lanes if you're trying to throw that pocket pass. I mean, really, really, really good in the pick and roll, which we ended up going away from it. Putting him in it a little bit tonight. And then obviously once Steph got going, it don't matter who you put in it, we going to Steph. And so kudos to DeMarcus, hats off to him. How he played this series was a really, really, really tough matchup for us. But like I said, we got it done. A couple things I wanna 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. Like, 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. Got a shout out. The boy been through what, 3 hip surgeries, I think. Yeah. 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, 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, what do you 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 kind of 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 out of 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 Loon has been absolutely incredible and one, is one guy that I love to play next to because 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. The Nuggets in this game continued to be super physical in they battle. 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 gotta get 'em credit there. And that's what teams are gonna try to do, right? They're gonna try to be physical. They're gonna 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 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, 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 were 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. Gary Payton was absolutely incredible. Number one. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, I'm probably wrong on this, but it looked like déjà vu. Ben Simmons last year passed up a layup and everybody got mad at him. However, there was a guy rotating across to block the shot. And so very similar possession today. Klay dropped the ball down to me and I kicked it out to Gary Payton. However, I think it was on the, I think it was flip-flop maybe, the sides and what Ben's was and what ours were. But Jeff Green 100% was about to send that shot to the third row. I mean, I caught it, I turned, by the time I turned, he's already loading up to block the shot and I kicked it out to GP. More importantly, I trust that GP can make that shot. Now it was such a terrible pass. So he had no chance at even shooting it anyway, the ball. Was on a nosedive right to the ground. It was actually an incredible catch by him. Then Wiggs, he swung it to Wiggs, Wiggs drove, and Wiggs actually threw him another terrible pass that went nosediving into the ground. He got it, he kept his poise, and he knocked it down. Good friend of mine in the media, Marcus Thompson, texted me, and he said, "GP might be like you, he just make all the big ones." And all the big shots. And I gotta give him his credit. He hit the shot, the 3 that put us up 86-84 when we took the lead. And then he knocked it down and put the dagger in and sent those boys back, sent those boys to Cancún. Gotta give GP a lot of credit. Also gotta give Jama a lot of credit. Jama, I don't know how to pronounce Jama's last name, but you can look it up. Jama is a coach on our staff, came over from Toronto. Absolutely incredible coach. Runs the player development side of things. And he's working with GP on his shot every single day. And it paid off. I mean, 2 huge threes, but not only that, dives, finishing at the bucket. And then what he did on the defensive end, absolutely incredible. He gets a bunch of deflections, mucks things up, rebounds well. GP was all over the place for us tonight. And a huge part, we're sitting here looking forward to who we play the next series. And the 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. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
