Warriors-Celtics NBA Finals preview, Game 1 fears, Steph Curry x-factor | Draymond Green Show

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. I think for us personally, I think this matchup could be good and it could be bad. The reason it could be good and it could be bad, I think is solely based on us, which is why I expect it to be good. What I mean by that, the Celtics have strengths as every team does, as every great team does. They can hide their weaknesses with their strengths. A bad team, and you can see plenty of them around this league, they can't hide their strength, their weaknesses with their strengths. Great teams can. And so for us, we have to be certain that especially on the offensive end for us, that we're not just playing into the hands of the defense, the, and into what Boston wants to get into, into what the shots that they may want you to settle for. We have to make sure that we are getting the shots that we want to get. Now, Now how does that happen? It's no secret. Like we're going to stick to who we are. We know and everyone knows the Warriors brand of basketball because you've seen it on display for years. We know what that entails. You don't get to the NBA Finals and just totally switch who you are. You got to the NBA Finals because you stayed true to who you are. And so I think for us it's all about ball movement. It's all about getting into the paint, trying to collapse the defense. Obviously you have to shoot the ball well, especially against a team like that that has so much length. Shooting the ball well is extremely important, but the way you can control shooting the ball well is to be certain that you're getting good shots. Now that doesn't guarantee that you're gonna shoot the ball well because ultimately you making missed shots and sometimes they just don't go in. But if you're getting great looks, that raises that percentage and the likelihood that those shots are gonna go in dramatically. And so I think for us, it's about ball movement. It's about getting into the paint, attacking the defense. You know, you don't go away from force. You meet force with force. Boston Celtics defense is very much so a real force. Yeah. They've shown that, especially over the second part of the year. So I think it's very important for us to, you know, obviously when you get to this point, we're gonna know them, they're gonna know us. You gotta get the 50/50 balls. That's important for us. But it's still important that you stay true to who you are. Now, obviously in the game plan, you make tweaks and you know, you, Maybe not go to these sets or go to those sets. And I'll find out more of that today as we're now starting to prepare for the Boston Celtics. Yesterday, it's kind of just all about us and getting back into a flow and a rhythm and getting moving, getting up and down the court a little bit after, you know, after a couple days off this weekend and then having some shooting and stuff. So that was yesterday for us. Today we'll install the game plan, start to hammer away at that. I have a ton of film to watch tonight on my own. Separately from what we'll do with the coaching staff, which I think is very important because in making these game plans, and one thing Coach Kirsch stays true to is you're, you're, we have to feel comfortable with the game plan. The coaching staff just feels comfortable, it's all for nothing because ultimately they don't go out there and play. And so it's very important that we feel comfortable with the game plan, which is why I like to just watch some film myself, kind of see what I, what I can see that may be differently what the coaching staff is thinking and have some input on that or, or understand that, all right, I think we should do this a little differently going into the game. Obviously we're gonna start the way the coaching staff wanna start, but I think this can work. And if that's not working, I can immediately go to them with an adjustment of what I think could help us as a team. And so that's very important going into these series. So I'm looking forward to really diving into further into the Boston Celtics this evening and watching more film after practice. But we gotta get the game plan installed first. I'm looking forward to that and just really getting this thing kicking. Now, as you can see, I don't have a haircut, which again, is something we always have to address. In the NBA Finals, this is a very interesting thing because the Finals really becomes more than just going out and play basketball. Practice for the NBA Finals is different. And all of these things make a difference in your routine. Now for us, it'll be a little different this time. You know, every other time, this is our first time being at the NBA, in the NBA Finals at Chase Center. And what that means for us is when we were in Oakland at Oracle, our practice facility was downtown Oakland. Oracle and the practice facility was not connected. During the NBA Finals, you have to practice at the arena. Why? Because it's an NBA mandate for media purposes that the home team practices first. And then the last 30 minutes of that practice, the media comes in. And it is a total shit show. Not that— The media is like a shit show, but it's literally, you're practicing, it's full of media members around the court. It's loud, it's pictures, it's all of these, all of this stuff going on. And it's not totally like practice. It just becomes less X and O and just more getting moving and different. And so it's a very weird thing. It totally takes you outta your routine. Yeah. Then you finish practicing, you have to get right off the court, go into your media session, and then you do the media session, you finish, the visiting team comes on the court, and for the first 30 minutes of their— for the first 30 minutes of their practice, the media is in there. And so you then deal with all of that. Obviously hotels and tickets and blah, blah, blah. There's so many things that you have to deal with just leading up to the game. And as leaders, as guys who's been there before, those are the things that you try to re— or not even necessarily remind because it's not a reminder, they don't know. But those are the things that you try to help the young guys understand to help them get ahead of it. 'Cause it's a whirlwind, it's a ton of things going on.

Yeah.

And then you realize when doing all those things like, dang, now it's time for me to focus on basketball. And that's the feeling you don't want. You want to get all of that stuff out the way right now, get locked in on the task at hand and make everything just about basketball as fast as you can. So for us, that's kind of the space that we're in now and just getting everything handled, locking in on the game plan. So I'm really looking forward to that. I'm really—

Draymond Green.

Looking forward to getting our coaching staff thoughts. One of the things that I enjoy most about the playoffs is the initial meeting and facing a team. And we had a small meeting yesterday and talked about a couple things, but today it'll be a big meeting leading up to practice. And really just like breaking a team down, like thoroughly breaking them down.

X.

Like defensively, offensively, tendencies, thoroughly breaking it down. And so I really enjoy that meeting because it's the X and O's part of it. Nerdy part of it, if you will. I know everybody don't really enjoy that side of things, but I absolutely love it. So I'm looking forward to this meeting today. Jackson, we got the mailbag questions. Let's talk to our people before we get out, before I go and prep for these NBA Finals. What you got for us, Jax?

So instead of the mailbag this episode, we're gonna do something a little bit different. I am gonna ask you some questions. We're gonna do a fill in the blank. About the NBA Finals in honor of our big Finals preview blowout episode. All right, first one. Going into Game 1, the thing that keeps Draymond Green up at night most about this series is blank.

The thing that keeps me up at night most about this series is honestly our health. I think for us, as healthy as we can get leading into this game Thursday, if we can get Otto back, if we can get Gary Payton back, if we can get Andre back, Those are 3 key pieces to our lineups, to our rotation. And so if we can get one of those guys back, incredible. If we can get 2 of those guys back, amazing. And if we can get 3 of those guys back, I mean, what more can you ask for? So the thing that keeps me up at night going into game 1 is wondering if those guys will be back or not.

Yeah.

And, and help us go after this championship against a very good Boston Celtics team.

Okay. The Warriors will win the NBA Finals this year if blank.

The Warriors will win the NBA Finals this year if we control our turnovers. It's a very good defense. We have to be crisp with our passing. Understand that they have great length. They play passing lanes. They're very aggressive, they're switching defense. So it's very important the Warriors win the Finals if we control our turnovers.

On the flip side, the Celtics will win the Finals if blank.

The Celtics will win the Finals if, the Celtics will win the Finals if their defense are able to one, stop Steph Curry. I think that's where everything starts at. But if they ultimately are able to disrupt our offense, now what does disrupt mean? I think that's taking you, ultimately taking you out of the things that you want to do. So if they're able to disrupt our offense, Then the Celtics wins the NBA Finals.

Last one. If the Warriors win the NBA Finals, this Steph, Klay, Draymond Green, Steve Kerr era Warriors dynasty ranks blank in all-time dynasties. I know you're not much of a ranker, but.

If the Warriors win the Finals, the Warriors dynasty ranks blank of all-time dynasties. All right, so let me ask you a question. What part of the Lakers are considered a dynasty or just the Lakers whole, a dynasty as a whole? Because to me, in my opinion, it sounds like when we're speaking of the Warriors dynasty, we're only speaking of this kind of period of where Steph, Klay, and myself and Andre has been kind of rocking and Looney and Coach Kerr has been kind of rocking. And so I asked that because obviously the Lakers has done it in this pocket, in that pocket. So is the Lakers as a whole a dynasty or are there different dynasties within the different pocket?

I would say it's different eras. You got the Magic era Lakers, you got Shaq and Kobe, and then you got Shaq and Powell. I don't know if I would consider Shaq and Powell a dynasty, but I would say— Kobe and Powell. Sorry, Kobe and Powell, excuse me. I would say you're going by eras of, of the team. It's not just the franchise as a whole.

Okay. So be that there are eras and we are up against eras. So Shaq, Kobe, Magic era.

You got Jordan's Bulls, you got Bird Celtics. There's obviously a lot of great dynasties in the history of the NBA.

You got Spurs.

Spurs is one that I think people are comparing a lot to the Warriors because it's sort of got this two, two different acts, the early Duncan part and then the later part with Kawhi, sort of like the later part of your guys' thing. So that's an interesting one to compare to.

I think there's, that's definitely an interesting one. And as you know, I have the utmost respect for Coach Pop and the Spurs and Timmy D and all of those guys. To say I wanna rank us as a dynasty, I just, it's hard for me to fix my mind to say, you know what, that dynasty is better than them because of X. Like, I just think that's totally disrespectful to basketball. I think it's totally disrespectful to guys and it's a way of lessening the impact that guys have had on the game. So I refuse to rank. But what I will say is whether we win or lose the NBA Finals, it does, like the dynasty is intact, baby.

Mm-hmm.

The dynasty is there and it been there and making it to this Finals or not making it, winning it or not, Obviously winning is going to help it, right? Like winning always boosts, but making— my point is making it to this NBA Finals doesn't stamp this dynasty. Dynasty been stamped. And so if there's anything that I wanna say, it's that. It's not necessarily that I rank our dynasty number one. Like nah, like I respect Magic's dynasty. I respect Bird's dynasty. I respect MJ's dynasty. I respect the Bad Boys Pistons. I respect the Spurs. I appreciate everybody that came before me and their greatness. And what they did. And so to get into ranking them, I'm not gonna do that outta my respect and love and appreciation for this game and for the hard work that go into it. But what I will say is dynasty been cemented.