SAN FRANCISCO — Draymond Green was the last person to speak to the media in the Golden State Warriors locker room late Wednesday night after a 104-100 loss to the Houston Rockets that ended with Stephen Curry limping off the floor and back to the locker room. The 35-year-old emotional leader of the proud group stood at the back of the locker room and offered a message that resonates better, whether Curry, who is scheduled to have an MRI to assess his right quad injury, can return to the lineup in short order or not.
“Our defense is s—,” Green said. “Because it’s not necessarily the numbers. Like how do you feel when you’re out there? And if it’s just letdown after letdown, it’s bigger than the numbers, you know what I’m saying? Defense is about demeanor. So if there’s letdown after letdown and it kills your demeanor, it kills your bravado, then you’re just a soft team. So it’s bigger than a number. What does the other team feel when you’re defending them? And right now they don’t feel no force.”
Green’s words, and those of fellow veteran Jimmy Butler, were pointed after a loss that dropped the Warriors to 10-10. The group is average right now and knows it. They can’t find consistency on either end of the floor and both Green and Butler have repeatedly pointed to the Warriors’ defense as the larger problem, even though coach Steve Kerr continues to believe that the defense, ranked 1oth in the league, is not as big a weakness as other issues the group is facing.
The juxtaposition of Green and Butler’s perspectives against Kerr’s is interesting in that no matter which side you take, there are still enough issues to go around, and they could all be exacerbated depending on how long Curry is out. For Green and Butler, the fix in the short term is simple. It’s been a common theme they’ve echoed this season: Play harder — especially on the defensive end.
“You got to box out,” Butler said. “You got to guard, all of these things that we say we’re gonna do that we do sometimes, but most of the time we don’t.”
Butler is a fascinating character for the Warriors in many ways, but his presence becomes even more important if Curry has to miss any time. He has been the offensive leader many times in his career and he knows how to handle that kind of burden. But when asked if his mindset would shift without Curry, Butler brought the focus right back to where he believes his team’s biggest problem still resides.
“I don’t care about offense,” Butler said. “We got to guard somebody. We’re good to score. But I don’t want the offense, or if we’re missing shots, to dictate not going and guarding on the defensive side of the ball. I’m going to play the exact same way, but we just got to guard. We’ll be all right.”
It’s worth noting that yet again, despite a winnable game slipping away down the stretch, there wasn’t panic in the Warriors’ locker room. There was the feeling that Curry might have to miss some time, but the consensus was more frustration over a lack of execution rather than the season slipping away.
Both Green and Butler went out of their way to say the Warriors’ struggles weren’t on Kerr or his staff. They feel that the group has prepared them to the best of its ability. It’s the players who aren’t playing up to their potential. So what will it take to turn things around and get the “force” back, as Green called it?
“It requires all of us as individuals to take on your challenge,” Green said. “If you take on your challenge, then we can make the team thing work. But the only way the team thing works is if we take on an individual challenge. And right now we are individually, and I know everybody likes to twist words, I said we are individually f—— awful.”
For his part, Kerr tried to keep calm regarding the events that led to the loss — and will likely affect the group’s short-term future as Curry’s quad is evaluated. The Warriors are who they are right now, but he still believes better days are ahead.
“What did Bill Parcells say?” Kerr said. “You are what your record says you are. So we’re 10-10, we’re an average team. And I think we have the potential for much more. And it’s my job as coach to help these guys find that rhythm that can give us some juice, some separation, some confidence. So I believe in them and our guys, our continuity that we’ve got from not only last year but Steph and Dray for 14, 15 years, whatever it’s been. So I believe in the guys and we just got to keep working and we’ll get there.”
Green agreed with the assessment. He knows that the Warriors are playing with the type of inconsistency that has defined their season, that separates good teams from mediocre ones. He just didn’t sound as optimistic as Kerr that things would be able to get back on track soon.
“You have bad losses and you’re 10-10, guess what you are?” Green said. “A f—— .500 team. Lose games that you should win. That’s what .500 teams are … very average team right now.”
Green believes the defensive issues go hand in hand with the offensive swings, calling it a “domino effect.” He said it starts with the Warriors’ collective point of attack defensively. Once teams get a little confidence from the Warriors on the offensive end, their confidence grows a little bit in other areas.
“We’re getting f—— blown by,” Green said. “And then our rotations suck, I’m not helping great. So it’s a domino effect. But when you get beat there’s point of attack, then what happens? And right now we kind of suck at that, but the flip side, we got to take on the individual challenge.”
It’s a challenge each player must take even more seriously as the prospect of playing without Curry looms. Green has been around the league and won for too long to change his ways now. He knows Curry leads one way, usually with more positivity, and he leads another. Butler said the Warriors would have to be “damn near perfect” to win without Curry, given all the things he can do to help them on the floor.
For Green, the challenge must come from within. That’s why he shrugged off the idea that, without Curry, he might need to be the one to keep everybody’s spirits up a little more for a team that is over a month into the season and still trying to find its way.
“I’m not a big keeping spirit up guy,” Green said. “That ain’t really the department I sell in. … That’s somebody else’s area to keep spirits up. I do mine the opposite way.”