BOSTON — Draymond Green turned these NBA Finals with his intensity and physicality in Game 2.
And then he turned them again a few days later in Game 3. This time, for all the wrong reasons.
Green was not the sole reason the Warriors lost Game 3, but his performance — the worst of his illustrious playoff career — was glaring.
What else did you expect from a player whose career has been made by ostentation? His great is big and his bad is, too.
And on Wednesday night, that same attitude was anything but effective — it was destructive.
Another game like that in Game 4 Friday and the Warriors’ chances of winning a fourth title will be destroyed, too.
Because this series, with all of its fascinating performances and tactical wrinkles, can really be boiled down to one big — and on Wednesday — ugly truth:
The Warriors will live or die by the play of Green.
And seeing as how he has played this season, this postseason and now these Finals, that’s a dangerous proposition, as the Warriors need to win three of the next four games to claim the title.
The Warriors have never lost a playoff series under Steve Kerr when Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Green have all played in every game. It’s one of those stats that seems to be shoehorned, but when you consider how many playoff series that have played in, it’s stunning.
Curry had a poor defensive game Wednesday, but he has been marvelous on offense for three games.
Thompson’s early-series struggles melted away in Game 3 — his big performance gave the Warriors a chance to win on the road.
But Green has not held up his end of the bargain in two of this series’ three games. His play seems directly correlated with the Warriors winning and losing.
And worse yet, in all three games, he’s looked old.
Boston is young, strong, long and the more athletic team. What the Warriors have in their favor is Curry and a trove of experience.
If all things are equal, that experience should win out, with Green as the player who can most effectively weaponize it.
Green did that in Game 2. He was able to knock the young Celtics off their game with physicality and trash talk.
The Celtics waited until Game 3 to respond, but they were marvelous from the opening tip at TD Garden as “Shipping Out to Boston” blared.
And Green looked downright lost.
Even when the Warriors surged back in the third quarter, Green struggled.
He finished with two points, two turnovers, four rebounds, three assists and six fouls. He has five made field goals and 15 fouls in this series.
Of course, the box score rarely explains Green’s impact, good or bad.
No, the truly concerning part of the Green’s Game 3 was his poor defense.
Don’t blame the “[Blank] Draymond” chants at the TD Garden.
No, credit the Celtics for their adjustment.
The Celtics’ new offensive plan on Wednesday was to attack Curry as a primary defender, but more specifically to go at Green as the help defender.
The Celtics had seen in the first two games that Green was over-helping, attacking the ball handler in the mid-range instead of collapsing into the paint. That over-aggressiveness could result in forced turnovers, as we saw in Game 2, but Boston’s plan Wednesday counteracted that problem.
Boston’s perimeter ball-handlers weren’t looking for their own shot when they drove in Game 3. No, Curry made penetration easy after he picked up a soft early foul — his physicality in Game 2 helped him turn in a great defensive game but such bumping was not going to fly in Boston — and then, approaching the lane, with Green abandoning his mark, the Celtics’ ball handler — be that Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum or Marcus Smart — all kicked to the man left open on the perimeter or in the dunker’s spot.
That’s a defensive breakdown and the Celtics capitalized on them early and often.
The Celtics kept the ball moving for 40-something minutes in Game 3, and when they do that, with their half-court defense, they are something close to unbeatable.
In many ways, the Celtics beat the Dubs with Golden State’s template: They turned great defense into offense and capitalized on lopsided defenses in their half-court offense.
There are, of course, adjustments that the Warriors can make ahead of Game 4. This series isn’t over — unless of course Curry cannot play on Friday because of his foot injury, picked up late in the fourth quarter. (Curry said after Game 3 he expects to play in Game 4.)
But the Dubs stand no chance if the hub of their defense is lost.
Success for the Dubs begins on that side of the court. Green — one of the greatest defenders in the history of the league — must be better there in Game 4. Do that and, like magic, the Warriors’ offense will improve, too.
And while Green isn’t an offensive asset, he cannot be such a glaring liability in the Warriors’ half-court sets, as he was Wednesday.
Credit to Green for this — he knew he played poorly in Game 3.
The Warriors forward said he played like excrement — translated from the local Boston dialect, of course.
“I just think I never found a rhythm, really on both ends of the floor,” he said. “Not enough force… I was soft. That’s what was most disappointing to me, for us.”
Kerr and Thompson expressed confidence that Green would bounce back.
“I have all the confidence in the world in Draymond Green,” Thompson said.
“He had a tough game but I trust Draymond as much as I trust anybody,” Kerr said. “He’s one of our best players, obviously, a championship player. We rely on him for his energy and his brain.
He’ll bounce back. He always does.”
And now, he must.
