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After averaging 7.4 points per game this regular season, Draymond Green is back on form just in time.
The Golden State Warriors’ power forward — who lost a reported 23 pounds in anticipation of his team’s playoff run — has picked up his game and his attitude this post season and is that guy once again. In Saturday’s Game 3 loss in Houston, Green had a great game, posting 19 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists, but when he appeared to take an uncalled charge in the final seconds, Green, as The Ringer noted, “let out his frustration by blindsiding Austin Rivers with a ball screen 50 feet away from the hoop.”
Green’s resurgence after the regular season appears to have surprised the Rockets after they saw him score or assist on 19 of Golden State’s 28 first-quarter points in Game 1. The antagonizer has been, statistically, Golden State’s third-best player on a team where he’s surrounded by future Hall of Famers.
Green is making his teammates better, too. In a postseason that includes marquee players like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid, it’s Green’s compatriot, 35-year-old Andre Iguodala, who’s leading all players in dunks with 22 — 12 of which have been made possible by Green’s screens.
The 29-year-old is “as irreplaceable as he is insufferable,” The Ringer wrote, which makes his team’s decision on him this upcoming off season interesting. Green can, technically, hit unrestricted free agency in 2020 but is also extension-eligible this summer. If he doesn’t step on too many toes on Golden State’s path to, perhaps, another title, winning could be Green’s greatest argument that he’s worth any potential headaches he might inflict in the process.
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