If there’s anyone who will hold Draymond Green accountable, it’s himself.
His podcast “The Draymond Green Show” has become a self-reflective vessel for the Warriors veteran, and he used its most recent episode to talk about what went wrong for him during Golden State’s 116-100 loss to the Boston Celtics during Game 3 of the NBA Finals at TD Garden on Wednesday night.
Speaking to his listeners after the game, Green admitted he let “too much noise” get into his head coming into the road matchup that saw him finish with two points, three assists and four rebounds before fouling out.
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“Tonight may have been one of the worst games in my career,” Green said. “Honestly, I totally outsmarted myself. Coming into the game, you know, you hear all the noise and the noise gets closer and closer to you and it’s like, ‘Hey, you can’t get into it with the refs’ and, ‘Hey, you have to be very careful, you can’t go into the game like this.’
“And not that I am blaming my performance on anybody … I’m a man of mine, I hold mine, I stand on it and that’s just that. But I think for me, I just let too much noise get into my head about all the other stuff.”
Earlier podcast comments of Green’s following the Warriors’ Game 1 loss were a topic of conversation heading into Game 2 after he implied the 3-point performances of Boston’s Al Horford and Derrick White were an anomaly. Then in Game 2, his on-court antics led to a technical foul -- and nearly a second -- fueling plenty of opinions surrounding his style of play.
Heading into Game 3 on Wednesday, it was no surprise that the Boston crowd greeted Green with less-than-welcoming jeers. But Green already was was in his own head, he said.
Golden State Warriors
“So in turn, I let that drag my intensity level down,” Green said. “I’m going into the game like, ‘Ah, you know, I’m not going to say this. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to give the referees a chance to call a tech’ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
“And I did the exact opposite of what I said I was going to do or what I needed to do. I did the exact opposite. I actually did what most people think I should do, and that just doesn’t work for me. You know, that’s not who I am.”
In the Finals so far, Green has as many fouls as points, more technicals than threes and more turnovers than baskets, per StatMuse.
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Moving forward, the three-time NBA champion reiterated the need to just be himself on the court without worrying about the outside noise.
“Ultimately, I have gotten to this position by simply being me and trusting in who I am, trusting in what I bring to the court and ultimately kind of just blocking out the noise, because there’s always noise. And then I didn’t do that.
“I think for me, the biggest adjustment is just coming out and being Draymond Green.”