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DENVER – Striker Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors has carved out a star career based primarily on his defensive prowess. While he's watching scores skyrocket throughout the NBA during the first week of the season, Green has explained what many people in the league believe.
"It's pretty tight," said Green after his team's first loss, a 100-98 loss to the Denver Nuggets. "We've been told that, defense is no longer really a priority in this league, so I think you see it all over the league with these high scores, we know what the priority is. better It's not done in three games, maybe we win two, but it took us tonight. "
Green and the Warriors did not use extravagant calls as an excuse, but spoke more of a new reality. After being whistled for 29 fouls and sending the Nuggets to the line 46 times, the Warriors have now been called to 81 fouls in the first three games of the season.
In the league, 10 of the 30 teams award at least 120 points per game. Until the end of the match, the first Sunday of last season, only two teams gave 120 on average. The Nuggets are the only team to give less than 100, while each team scores at least 100.
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Gary Harris scored 28 points, Juancho Hernangomez blocked a brace just before the ring and the Denver Nuggets defeated the Golden State Warriors 100-98 on Sunday night.
Green was asked how they solved the problem.
"I do not know," Green said. "Some are doubtful, like Klay's, Gary Harris is a hell of a cutter, you have to be in his body. He steals the screen of his right hand, he is good at it. So, we call each other and we call you to go on the screen, I do not know what you're doing there, but in the same way, some of our faults are just stupid. As if we still had six, seven, or eight minutes of bonus every quarter, we're still getting dirty – so I think some [the calls] are a bit debatable and then some are on us, just ridiculous. "
Green made it clear that the Warriors had to play better overall.
"We need to be smarter," he said. "We can not sit there and act as if every phone call was wrong during the game. Officials are going to be wrong, it's just the nature of the beast, they're human, that's the To clean that up, to fight that, we can not be stupid because what they do is an inaccurate science, so they will not get them back, how do you fight that? Clean up our defense stops to use our hands as much, stop reaching, and for the moment, we are not doing a good job in that direction. "
Warrior star Stephen Curry thinks his team will adapt, but he admits the name of the game is different from the past.
"It depends largely on the speed of the game," Curry said. "We can not really simulate defensive assets of this kind at the end of the season, we have to adapt on the fly, we called it differently this year, they showed it, so we have to adapt if that's how it happens But it's a recurring theme in the first three games of the regular season, which is why we put a lot of momentum in the beginning, it's because we put them on the line of free throws, easy points and also slow down the game. "We had to make adjustments."
Kevin Durant thinks his group will make these adjustments over time.
"We are a physical team," Durant said. "I think we're a physical team in the last few years, obviously with the freedom of movement we have to be a bit more careful before the game." I think what makes a good defense is that you do your work early before the play starts and sometimes we're a bit too physical, so we have to calm down a bit while trying to play aggressively, just try to find that balance. "
Throughout the first week of the season, the Nuggets found that balance, winning three straight wins while keeping their opponents under 100 points each night. According to ESPN Stats & Information, they are the only team in the NBA to have done this in three games. It was a race that ended at the end of Sunday night's game when Warriors center Damian Jones headed for a dunk that would have tied the game in the final seconds for the ball to be drunk. the fat man of the Nuggets, Juancho Hernangomez.
"We can talk about game plan and strategy, but at the end of the game, for me, the defense comes down to being proud," said Nuggets coach Michael Malone at the end of the match. "Do you want to go out there and give all you have to defend?" The second part of this is the multiple effort.We are flying around … Last year we were a lot more a team The only thing that sets me apart is that keeping three opponents under 100 points means that our guys are interested in it, they are attached to it and the multiple efforts are there. "
The Warriors still had a chance to win, despite several discordant playing periods, Kerr noting that it was sometimes "one of the worst basketball games" that he had seen during his tenure as four years with the group. He was proud of his group's ability to recover after losing 13 points, but he knows that they still have a lot to clean up despite a 2-1 record.
"It seems like every game we come in and we commit four fouls in the first five minutes," said Kerr. "It's happened in the pre-season, it's happened in all three games now, we have to fix it, we're talking about it all the time, we're drilling all the time, we're doing defensive drills without reaching, without catching. to break through and this must become a habit for our team, but we have not made it yet. "
Green, who missed several weeks in pre-season because of a painful left knee, says he's still not in the rhythm at all, but he's confident it will come back when he will have his legs under him.
"We just do not run," Green said. "We turn the ball a lot, we play a game against a determined defense every time, they shoot 44 free throws or something like that, you play against a fixed defense every time, your performance counts a bit more than if a team made 21 free throws, it's 10 more possessions than not playing defense of the game.
The Warriors do not shoot at 3 points as they usually do – they only do 7 to 29 in the night. They are now just 24 for 84 from beyond the bow of the season.
"I do not like the looks we've had at all," Kerr said. "We did not run.I thought we had performed well against Utah.But we did not run this game.Oklahoma City was not executed.We are too many.We have to make some adjustments The second unit – – We have moved away from what our identity was in the last two years because the staff has changed so we need to establish something with them, but we build on the basis of the movement, of the cut, the selection and we seem to have an iso after the other.So we are not where we need to be again.
Does Green think the league is in a better place with all the points accumulated by the teams in recent days?
"It depends on who you ask," Green said. "For defense lovers, no, for offensive people, yes, it depends on who you ask for."
Green would not have a problem with the games taking their name from last season, but he knows the Warriors will have to adapt to their time.
"I like playing in defense," Green said. "So I do not know, that's it."
Information extracted from Stats & Info from ESPN was used in this report.
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