Draymond Green answers Damian Lillard's criticism: 'We shut the faucet off'
Entering Tuesday’s rematch of the Western Conference semifinals with the Portland Trail Blazers, the Golden State Warriors ranked fourth from the bottom of the NBA in defensive rating, allowing 108 points per 100 possessions. Granted, we’re looking at a three-game sample size, but for a team that ranked no worse than fourth in defense over the previous three seasons, there was cause for concern.
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If we learned anything from those first three games, in which the San Antonio Spurs blew out the Warriors and the winless New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns gave them scares, it was that replacing Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli and Marreese Speights with Zaza Pachulia, David West and JaVale McGee over the summer was no immediate upgrade defensively. In full disclosure, I cautiously warned after one game, “If the Warriors have a fatal flaw, the Spurs exposed it with ‘a slap in the face.’”
Obviously, any criticism came with the requisite caveat that the 82-game season had barely begun, and Golden State’s offense could win them a whole lot of games while they figured the defense out. And Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, speaking before Tuesday’s game, seemed to agree with it all.
“It’s not the same,” Lillard said of the Warriors’ defense through their first three games, according to CSN Northwest. “They are a great offensive team and I think they will still be a good defensive team, but it’s different than when Bogut is not back there. It’s just not the same.”
“It’s different when you don’t have a guy like Andrew Bogut in that paint. He controlled that paint really well for them on the backside of that defense, so [in our preseason game] I felt good about getting to the rim.’
Indeed, Lillard and backcourt mate C.J. McCollum each scored 10 points in the paint, where the Blazers combined for 48, during their preseason finale against Golden State on Oct. 21. Through the first three games of the regular season, the Warriors allowed 52 points in the paint — only exceeded by the Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers. So, if Golden State had an Achilles heel, that was it.
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The Warriors were well aware of this. So much so that they used it as motivation against the Blazers, outscoring Portland by a 60-28 margin in the paint on Tuesday. Just ask Green about it afterwards.
“We cut the faucet off on them,” he told CSN Bay Area after a 127-104 win. “There’s a lot of talk about, ‘We don’t have an anchor on defense,’ or, ‘The defense isn’t the same,’ and I think tonight we showed what we can do on the defensive end. If we continue to do that, we could be real tough to deal with.”
In the media scrum afterward, Green added, “That was great for us to really come out and put that kind of game together on the defensive end, especially when our defense has been called out — that there’s no anchor and it’s not the same and all that. I think some opinions will change sooner than later, but until then, we’ll just keep doing that. And when they change, we’ll keep doing that still. It was fun to do that.”
Only the Spurs have allowed fewer than 28 points in the paint during a single game this season. Individually, Green held Portland to 2-of-8 shooting at the rim. Although, we should note the Blazers finished 4-of-5 at the basket opposite Pachulia, and 16 of their 28 points in the paint came in Pachulia’s 18.8 minutes at center, including 10 PITP in 10 minutes against Golden State’s starting lineup (as opposed to just four PITP in 13.1 minutes with Green at the five in small-ball lineups).
So, just as we offered an “it’s only one game” caveat after San Antonio exposed Golden State’s interior defense, we should do the same following the Warriors’ performance against a Portland frontcourt that features Mason Plumlee and Meyers Leonard at center. (Ezeli, who left the Warriors for a two-year, $15.1 million deal from the Blazers, has yet to play in Portland after offseason knee surgery.)
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When asked about Golden State’s lockdown paint defense after Tuesday’s loss, Lillard told reporters, “We stopped getting to the rim, but part of that was them. Like I said, they are still going to be a good defensive team — they are a championship-level team — so they will adjust. You are not going to be able to get to the lane all night, but we have to keep finding ways and being crafty about how we get there. It’s not always going to be a straight drive-by … but we have to keep attacking the paint.”
Regardless of the sample size, teams are going to continue to attack the paint against Golden State, and while the Warriors were successful stopping Portland’s attack on Tuesday, they still have to figure out how to replicate that with Pachulia on the floor against bigger lineups — for example, Thursday’s date with Steven Adams, Enes Kanter and Kevin Durant’s old team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
