Why Draymond Green's second-quarter ejection woke up Warriors in win over Suns
Why Draymond Green's second-quarter ejection woke up Warriors in win over Suns originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – It’s dubious, perhaps even silly, to conclude that the Warriors are a better team without Draymond Green.
But they surely were Saturday night – because Green’s absence left them no choice.
Trailing by 11 when Green was ejected early in the second quarter, the Warriors shook off their atrocious start, reacquainted themselves with defense in the middle quarters and then hung on for a 119-116 win over the Phoenix Suns before a sellout crowd (18,064) at Chase Center.
The victory was a tonic for the Warriors, snapping their three-game losing streak and alleviating some of the internal frustration, allowing the twitchiest activists within Dub Nation to get at least one night of peaceful sleep.
All because of their response to Green’s ejection with 10:39 left in the first half.
“Sometimes we take advantage of Draymond, what he does for us, and we count on him to clean up everything,” Gary Payton II said. “But once he’s out of there, we know we all got to come together and do it collectively. I think everybody felt that. And when we’re doing that as a unit, we can be pretty damn good.”
Green was assessed his first technical foul for shoving Suns guard Collin Gillespie in transition, and the second came moments later, when Draymond taunted lead official Pat Fraher and received the automatic ejection.
The Warriors were trailing 48-37 when Green was tossed. They had given up 44 points in the first quarter, with the Suns torching the nets, shooting 70.8 percent from the field, including 60 percent from beyond the arc.
“We were giving up straight line drives, straight bullet passes to the weak side, and they’re just teeing off on 3s, or they were just walking from the 3-point line to the basket getting a layup,” Stephen Curry said.
Phoenix forward Dillon Brooks scored 12 points, shooting 5-of-5 from the field in the first quarter, and All-Star guard Devin Booker put in another 11. The Warriors gave up five dunks in the first 12 minutes. Their Golden defense was asleep.
The sight of Draymond stalking off the floor for the rest of the evening got the Warriors’ attention.
“I think it woke us up,” Curry said. “Because we knew without him, we’re going to have to play even tougher, dig deeper down the rotation. I think everybody was kind of on alert and trying to have his back.”
The Warriors turned ferocious, limiting the Suns to 31.8-percent shooting from the field, including 17.6 percent from deep in the second and third quarters. Golden State took a six-point (93-87) lead into the fourth quarter and pushed to 11 before Phoenix staged a comeback, cutting the margin to one in the final seconds before Curry dropped in a reverse layup with 5.7 seconds remaining to secure the win.
“The game settled down for us after the first quarter,” coach Steve Kerr said. “(The Suns) came out lights out, shooting. We made a few mistakes, and then we buckled down defensively. The middle quarters were fantastic defense. They broke free a little bit at the end.”
The result was the Warriors crashing through a barrier that seemed to be getting sturdier each game. After three consecutive clutch-game losses, they found success. They have played 16 clutch games and now are 6-10.
But watching the Suns go on an 11-5 run inside the final two minutes frayed a few nerves inside Chase and did not go unnoticed by Kerr.
“We know we have to execute better down the stretch,” the coach said. “We didn’t execute well, especially defensively. We gave up some open looks, and the 3-point play by (Booker) with about a minute to go . . . we can’t have had the full-court press on and let him move freely and go right to the rim. So, we have a lot to look at and learn from.”
Draymond did a lot of looking on Saturday. And he learned something, too. That his teammates did a splendid job covering for him. They applied defense because he could not, and it won the game.
