Warring Warriors? Green Plays Down Heated Moment With Durant
JANIE McCAULEY, AP Sports Writer
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Draymond Green approached Kevin Durant near the end of Golden State's bench and quickly their discussion escalated into a heated dispute, both players punctuating their points with demonstrations. While the rest of the Warriors watched, a teammate eventually came over to keep the peace.
That flap during Saturday's overtime loss at Sacramento wasn't the first between the All-Stars, either.
Warring Warriors? Naw, no worries about a family feud for the NBA's top team.
Green insists that's all part of it from time to time and there is never any harm intended. Coach Steve Kerr considers it healthy and a positive once in a while.
"If you can't, you're probably on a losing team," the fiery Green said Tuesday. "But everybody who makes a big deal out of it probably are losers. That's how I view it. Anyone who knows anything about winning knows that that's going to happen."
Green and Durant squabbled on the court late in the third quarter after a mix-up led to a shot-clock violation. Soon after, Green could be seen on video walking toward Durant and yelling from close range while raising his hands in the air.
Green then took a seat on the bench and Durant came over to continue their argument, with Shaun Livingston playing peacemaker.
"We know it's really nothing. It's constructive to try to understand how we're going to get better," Warriors star Stephen Curry said Tuesday. "It comes from a place of respect between everybody on this team, including those two guys. So, nobody takes anything personal, nobody goes home and cries about it."
"It's about everybody wants to win, and in that moment it might get heated, it might happen in front of cameras, it might happen in the locker room, it might happen at practice, it might be a phone call, offline, whatever. Those kinds of conversations need to happen so that we continue to try to get better and challenge each other to not get complacent," he said.
Green wouldn't say exactly what was at issue moments after the Warriors' 109-106 defeat, just that "it was actually a tactic, but that's for us to know and for everyone else to figure out." Green and KD also were teammates on the U.S. Olympic team that won gold in Rio last summer.
Kerr, meanwhile, was already long gone after being ejected with 3:34 left in the third quarter for a profanity-laden tirade directed at official Bill Spooner. The reigning NBA Coach of the Year apologized through the league to Spooner a day later. The NBA fined Kerr $25,000 on Monday.
Kerr called the defeat one of his team's worst games. The Warriors, with an NBA-best 43-8 record, host Chicago on Wednesday night and will try to avoid consecutive regular-season losses for the first time since April 2015 during the franchise's championship season.
"We had all kinds of arguments that game," Kerr said. "Totally normal. You should have seen the Bulls back in the day, we had guys yelling at each other all the time. I equate it to if you have a lot of siblings and you're in the house together every day and you love each other and you'd do anything for each other but you're going to get in fights."
"That's what it's like to be on a team. These guys are so close," he said. "KD and Draymond are best of friends and they're together every night laughing and joking. So when something happens on the floor, I don't even bat an eye. It's just competitive, heat-of-the-moment stuff. We played an awful game. I coached an awful game. It was a bad night for all of us."
Green realizes there will be more tense moments with teammates along the way.
And everyone is after one thing at the end: another championship.
"If you've got to hide something from one of your teammates and you can't say something, then you're in a bad situation," Green said. "And me personally, I don't want to be in that situation. If you're on a team where you can't talk, where there's moments where you need to yell at each other, maybe that yelling is to get each other going, like you don't know what that is. No one else knows what that is, so if there is a team like that, please make sure I'm on the first thing smoking out of there because that team ain't for me."
NOTES: Klay Thompson was away from the team for a second straight day while attending his grandfather's memorial service. ... Neither F David West, out since suffering a non-displaced fracture of his left thumb Jan. 18, nor C Zaza Pachulia — sidelined with a strained right rotator cuff in his shoulder — will play against the Bulls. West still has some pain and will be re-evaluated in a few days, Kerr said. ... The Warriors are four games ahead of San Antonio for the top record in the NBA.
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