Green: Warriors were 'bullied, punked' in Game 3 loss
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called his team "soft" after they got torn apart on both ends of the floor by the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday.
All-Star forward Draymond Green couldn't agree more with his coach's assessment.
"I don't know. If I had an answer, it wouldn't happen," Green said Friday when asked how such a "soft" performance could even happen in the first place. "But I think we were extremely soft. We got bullied, punked, and any other word that you can find for it. That's pretty much what it was, and that's why the game went the way it went."
Green, who prides himself on being an anchor defensively for the defending champions, did little to stop the offensive onslaught from LeBron James, who dropped a game-high 32 points on 14-of-26 shooting.
When the shoe was on the other foot, James shut down Green from having a repeat performance of Game 2 when he led all scorers with 28 points. In 35 minutes on Wednesday, Green had just six points on 2-of-8 shooting while missing all four of his 3-point attempts.
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The Warriors gave up 120 points as a unit to Cleveland, who averaged 83 points through Games 1 and 2 at Oracle Arena. An ugly loss like that should be difficult to ignore, but for Green, it's simply on to the next one.
"It's not at all. It's a loss. Whether you lose by 30 or 1 in the playoffs, you've got a game in the loss column," he said. "When we lost to OKC, we lost two games by 30; we won the series. It don't matter. I said that after Game 2, everybody was worried, oh, they beat Cleveland by 35. It don't matter. It's a win. Last night's a loss. Nobody's like, oh, man, we lost by 30. What do we do next? We play Game 4 next."
Game 4 takes place on Friday at Quicken Loans Arena, with the Warriors currently owning a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.