Draymond Green is apathetic about ceding the West's top seed to Houston
Draymond Green doesn’t ascribe to the belief that earning the No. 1 seed is paramount to the Golden State Warriors’ title defense. To further demonstrate how confident, and not concerned at all, no sir, he is about a healthy Houston Warriors squad Green stressed to the media on Thursday that the Warriors will win anytime, anywhere.
Via CBS Sports:
“I guess you always want the No. 1 seed,” Green said to reporters. “It is what it is — you know we’re not gonna spend the rest of the year trying to fight for the No. 1 seed. If that happens it happens, our goal is to get better each and every day. If we’re getting better each and every day and we’re at the top of our game at the right time I don’t care where we playing. We’ll be just fine so our goal is just to get better.”
No. 1 seed? Huh? What’s that? Oh yeah…
This is one of the most dispassionate responses you’ll ever hear from Green, who has reason to be calm and overconfident. Golden State rode a 16-1 record to their second NBA title in three seasons last summer. In the postseason, the pace slows down, the play gets more physical and this Houston squad is unproven in that scenario. The Warriors appear to have become a classic flip the switch team, which is remarkable considering they’re only a half game behind the Rockets.
More importantly, they’ve been through this before. In 2016, even as they pursued 73 wins, and 2017, the Spurs were encroaching on the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed.
On the other hand, the Rockets appear to be consumed by toppling the Warriors. The only reason, Houston holds the No. 1 seed over Golden State is because they won the season series 2-1. Historically, the home team has won about 80 percent of Game 7 home games. For a team with such a robust analytics department, those odds can’t be ignored even if their experiences say otherwise.
The Warriors probably won’t sprint to the regular season finish line, but every advantage is beneficial for a team embarking on its fourth Finals run in four seasons.
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DJ Dunson is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at dunsnchecksin@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or Facebook.
