Draymond Green gets the final word over Celtics fans, media critics in NBA Finals
BOSTON -- It wasn't all that long ago that Celtics fans were having a whole lot of fun at Draymond Green's expense.
In Game 3 of the NBA Finals, one game after Green was given free rein to play tackle football against the C's, the veteran forward was struggling mightily at TD Garden. The fans let him know about it, too, loudly joining together for a "[bleep] you, Draymond" chant that resonated throughout the building and inspired all sorts of reactions from everywhere in the basketball universe.
Alas, just three games later, Green was back in that same building, and nobody was chanting much of anything. The Warriors led by five after the first quarter and by 15 at halftime en route to winning comfortably to secure their fourth championship in eight seasons.
Green was very good in the clinching game, shooting 5-for-10 from the field and 2-for-5 from 3-point range while grabbing 12 rebounds and dishing out eight assists -- all while committing just one personal foul. And after the win, Green unsurprisingly took some time to soak in the moment and reflect upon the series, the criticisms of him, and everything else that's happened over the past couple of weeks.
Here's how Green ended his postgame press conference on Thursday night:
Game 3, it just caught me off guard. Like you've heard crowds boo and ... I had never heard an entire crowd yelling 'eff you, Draymond.' Like, that was a different thing. And then so you couple that with having a so-so game, and it's like, aw, man.
Then I thought, when I speak of the new media, and going into Game 4, it was made out like, 'Oh, he's having this terrible series.' But if you know basketball, and then you watch Game 1, I did not have a bad Game 1, and I had an incredible Game 2. And Game 3 was kind of like, terrible. Awful. And Game 4 was like, not my best effort ... but not totally terrible. And Game 5 -- Game 5, I was pretty solid. Came out with great energy.
Game 6, I dominated.
But you read these narratives ... I saw Stephen A. [Smith] said, 'He's having the most horrific Finals of an NBA starter in history.' Like, dude, you ain't gotta be that ... you don't gotta exaggerate that much. That's ridiculous. But you'll hear more about that on the podcast tonight. But for me, it was just about staying the course. And I knew that I hadn't had a great game yet. I had had good games. I was clamping and doing things, but I hadn't quite put it all together yet.
And for me, I said what better time than to put it together tonight. I don't think I heard 'eff you, Draymond' all night. They couldn't. So, you know, it's easy to chant 'eff-you' when somebody is having a bad game, but can you do that when they're having a great game? I didn't hear much of it tonight. Maybe I was just that locked in.
But. Second team to win, close it out in TD Garden, right? Why not us? Who better than us? Four times. Who better than us?
To the victor go the spoils. In this case, the spoils include an opportunity to spike the football in the home of the fans that enjoyed delivering a rather unpleasant message earlier in the series.