Draymond Green will return to the court today after missing 16 games during his suspension and reconditioning process, but it might take some time before the Warriors look like a cohesive unit, writes Kendra Andrews of ESPN. Golden State had the second worst defense in the league during Green’s absence, according to Andrews, giving up 123.8 points per 100 possessions. The Warriors have allowed opponents to score at least 70 points in the first half in four of their last six games.
“Nothing ever just flips,” Green said. “I don’t look at myself as some savior, like this is going to save our defense or anything like that. I think I can help with communication. And like with everything else, it’s contagious.”
Green stayed away from the Warriors while he underwent counseling and didn’t rejoin the team until his suspension was lifted on January 6. He believes the break from basketball helped with his mental health, and coach Steve Kerr indicated that it could be beneficial for everyone.
“He’s still obviously a huge part of this thing and a huge part of our leadership,” Kerr said. “But he needs the awareness that comes with what he’s just gone through and what he has put the team through as well.”
There’s more from the Pacific Division:
- Mike Brown is the latest coach to vent about officiating, but he found a creative way to do it after the Kings‘ overtime loss Sunday at Milwaukee, per Rich Rovito of The Associated Press. Brown brought the team’s video coordinator and a laptop to his post-game press conference to show reporters the calls that led to his ejection. “The referees are human, and they’re going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there’s some sort of consistency and there’s some sort of communication between the refs,” Brown said. “The refs tonight, they were great, they communicated with me all night. But in terms of consistency, you guys saw it right here. In my opinion, the consistency wasn’t here tonight.”
- Seerat Sohi of The Ringer looks at how the Clippers were able to get all their stars on the same page after a rough start to the James Harden era. Coach Tyronn Lue believes they were too deferential to one another following the trade that brought Harden to L.A. “I think not wanting to step on each other’s toes. I think having respect, all four guys having a huge respect for each other,” Lue said. “Sometimes that can be a negative because now they don’t want to do what they’re capable of doing.”
- Cam Reddish could miss multiple games after leaving each of the Lakers‘ last two contests with knee soreness, tweets Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
Is the NBA’s gal to become Soccer? I swear, basketball players and coaches are yelling at the refs more than you would even see in futbol
It’s because the officiating is getting worse… from the NBA on down.
I know a young lady who I saw reffing a high school girls jv game at my old high school in 2015. I thought she was pretty good so after the game I gave her a flyer of my annual all-star basketball event and invited her to ref in it. She looked at it and asked which game I’d like her to ref. I told her high school boys. She looked intrigued while saying she’d never reffed boys before. Months later, she reffed the high school boys game in the event and did a great job.
Today… she’s an nba ref.
True story.
She’s good, but that’s how bad they’re hurting for refs.
Now that the NBA allows betting on games the officiating has become worse. You can tell in the 4th quarter of games when they must get the point spread to help Vegas. the question is will the NBA look into it at the end of the season or just collect their money from online gambling companies?
Interesting point.
You’d hate to think all the gambling might affect how the game is officiated and played.
But it is a possibility, and what is there to be done about it? How would we address those issues?
Since Refs get so little money compared to everyone else in sports its no surprise. NBA need a 4th ref and they also need to be consistent with what is called a foul. Do a point system for every wrong call and a ref who is over the amount takes a day off with no pay.
Good point but refs are least of the problem. Owners, executives, etc can easily influence the refs to call the game certain way. And what about the players and coaches??? Gambling sucks.
“Nothing ever just flips”. Yet supposedly Green’s demeanor on the court is supposed to have flipped in little more than a month?