For the first time since becoming just the second team in NBA history to be crowned champions on the parquet floor of TD Garden, Draymond Green and the Warriors will return to Boston on Thursday when they take on the best team in the league.
Green is prepared for a similar “hostile” environment as he experienced during the NBA Finals seven months ago, and he even revealed how he plans on greeting Celtics fans upon his return.
"I'll greet them with a nice smile," Green told ESPN's Kendra Andrews. "Just as I did after we won the championship."
Green referred to the title win as a “beautiful thing,” and admit it felt nice to be just the second team to win on their home court given how he was treated during the three games in the series played there.
Back in November, the Warriors star forward claimed that on top of the roar of boos and “F--k you Draymond!” chants, that same fanbase used a racial slur toward him at TD Garden.
“I was rattled. You hear boos, and I mean I’ve heard people screaming and yelling at me everywhere that I go,” Green told Pierce Simpson on an episode of “Unfiltered with Complex Sports.” “But I’ve never heard an entire gym, every time I touched the ball or I don’t have the ball, an entire gym [screaming] ‘F--k you Draymond.’ I thought that was cool, actually. That didn’t rattle me.
“But when I’m running down the court and it’s ‘b---h,’ it’s the n-word, those are insults at my character. Those are insults to me as a man. So you’re in this place where it’s like, ‘I really want to grab one of these people and wring their neck,’ but I’m going to lose that battle.”
Golden State Warriors
Green was Boston's clear villain over the course of the six-game series, from being boo'd in pregame intros to basically every time he touched the ball afterward. And in a rare instance, he confessed that the vulgar trash talk got to him.
The four-time champ scored just two points each in Games 3 and 4. He said he "had nothing going" and just "couldn't find it" upon that hostile environment.
This time around, though, he has to worry about something else Celtics fans might throw at him: His altercation with teammate Jordan Poole, something he said he hears from fans "all of the time".
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"If someone brings that up, I'm more worried about Jordan than myself," Green told Andrews. "I'm always hyper-alert because I want to see how that's compounding in Jordan's head. What actions do I need to take in that moment to make sure it doesn't mentally affect him."
While the crowd got the best of him last season, Green is fully prepared this time around. And with one more championship ring on his finger, he's more than ready to embrace it.