Draymond Green is no stranger to on-court contention. In fact, the Golden State Warriors’ breakout forward – and his team – often thrives off of intensity gleaned from it. By that measure, he says it’s no surprise that the Dubs fell to the Los Angeles Clippers 100-86 on Christmas Day.
Green told Ethan Sherwood Strauss of ESPN that the holiday had an undue influence on yesterday’s game.
“I don’t know what the cause of it was, maybe everybody was a little too jolly, Christmas spirit,” said Green, who had 10 points and 10 rebounds in 34 minutes. “But it was too nice. It was boring…”
“I mean, it’s no secret we don’t like them, and it’s no secret they don’t like us,” Green said by his locker. “So I don’t know why the game was that nice, trying to act like we like each other and we don’t. Boring game.”
When asked if there was anyone on Los Angeles whom he did not respect Green said, “Absolutely. Of course there is.”
Preach.
We were anticipating a typically heated matchup between the California rivals, one wrought with physicality, shoves, and a fracas or two a la last year’s Christmas meeting. Instead, the Clippers’ ho-hum win came and went with only two technical fouls – both of which were for arguing with officials.
One likely cause for the decided lack of tension? Golden State was missing Andrew Bogut. The Aussie goon is always a participator and frequent instigator of incidents between the ‘Dubs and Clips. Watch how often he’s center stage in the video below:
But Bogut’s absence shouldn’t have been enough to make this matchup close to friendly. Green and Blake Griffin already have some history from this season, and David Lee isn’t afraid to mix it up with Los Angeles, either.
Let’s hope Green is right about the influence of the holidays. It would be a shame to lose the intensity that makes – or made – this the league’s best rivalry.
What do you think?
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