Draymond Green Has ‘Simple’ Solution to Fix Warriors After

Draymond Green Has ‘Simple’ Solution to Fix Warriors After Loss Mars His Return

After the Golden State Warriors suffered another humiliating loss, this time 116-107 against a bare-bones Memphis Grizzlies club on

Monday, January 16, dropping them four games below.500, the return of Draymond Green presented a straightforward answer.

After the defeat, a distraught Green told reporters, “If we got guys that’ll take pride in themselves and play defense — one through 17

or however many guys we got — then it is solvable.”

You got to take pride in your one-on-one matchup. I think every guy they had down there beat their season average and so you got to

take pride. It starts with one-on-one defense and if you take pride in one-on-one defense then the team defense will automatically get

better right? A shell or trap, the box-and-one, that stuff, will not matter until we take that pride. It’ll be the same old story.”

G League players Vince Williams Jr. and GG Jackson both scored career highs 24 and 23 points, respectively against the Warriors’

porous defense to pace the Grizzlies missing four starters, including their franchise star Ja Morant.

Memphis hit 20 3s and made 32 of 40 free throws to beat Golden State, who got beat one-on-one and resorted to a fouling spree.

The Warriors’ 19 turnovers worsened their problems.

“You just gotta have pride in yourself as a man that I’m not gonna let my guy score,” Green said. “Our closeouts [were] too soft. Our

rotations were too slow. So there’s just no pride. Until every guy takes pride in themselves,

and wants to stop the guy in front of him, we’ll suck.”

It was all for nothing, as Green’s strong performance off the bench in his first game back after an indefinite suspension for striking

Phoenix center Jusurf Nurkic in the face on December 12—seven points, seven rebounds, and four assists.

Following the defeat, Warriors coach Steve Kerr remarked, “Draymond played well.” He gave it his all. It’s nice to have him returned.

Although we didn’t play well as a team, Draymond showed up and it’s fantastic to have him back.

Green did not single out anyone in their lackadaisical defensive effort. But everyone except him (plus-1), Andrew Wiggins (plus-9) and

Lester Quiñones (plus-1) had a negative net rating. Klay Thompson, who also struggled

offensively (9 points on 4 of 10 shooting) was a game-worst minus-22.