Kevin Durant Says Warriors Want Draymond Green to Shoot More

Kevin Durant thinks the Warriors need Draymond Green to pull the trigger more to be successful after dropping a game to the Jazz.

December 20, 2018

Draymond Green, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant — Image via Getty/Noah Graham/NBAE
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The Warriors—featuring their full complement of stars—lost to the Jazz in Salt Lake City Wednesday night, 108-103, despite 62 combined points from their two-headed MVP monster of Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. Klay had an off night, connecting on just 3-of-12 from the floor in 36 minutes, but it was Draymond Green, just eight points, that KD mentioned needed to score more, when asked by Anthony Slater of The Athletic how important Draymond's own offense is to their success.

"We just want him to shoot," KD says. "Making them, obviously we'd love for him to knock them down, but we just want him to be aggressive—look for his shot a little bit more. Not just threes, but his little floater that he shoots, the mid-range that he works on every day. We know his game is passing and defense, but we need him to score."

While Durant's words might sound a tad empty, considering the Warriors have the best shooter in NBA history, arguably the second-best ever with Klay (sorry Ray Allen), and the greatest scorer of all time in KD himself, what he's saying aligns with what Steph Curry told ESPN's Nick Friedell after the loss.

"We're really close," Curry said. "We fought hard, we competed, our energy was great. It's just the margin of error is a little bit smaller this year, but we understand that. [We] continue to get everybody's best shot against us, and it's been a grind. Nothing comfortable about this position we're in, in terms of like—we want to get back to being dominant. That's what we're working toward."

Part of that dominance hinges on the offense from the ancillary parts surrounding the Ghidorah of Klay, KD and Steph. KD is right about Draymond, too. During Golden State's 73-win regular season in 2016, Green shot an above average 38.8 percent from deep, on 3.2 attempts per game. Likewise, Andre Iguodala was shooting a respectable 35.1 percent from beyond the arc on 2.4 attempts from deep. The next season, Draymond's shooting from deep plunged to a little over 30 percent and it was around the same mark in 2018.

This season, he's shooting just 20 percent from deep and attempting his fewest shots per game since his sophomore season. Iggy is again shooting a respectable mark from three-point territory after cratering last season, but he's averaging fewer than two per game.

If the Warriors are going to be the first three-peat title winner since the 2002 Lakers, they need more offense from Dray and Iggy, if only to keep defenses honest and overcome that dwindling margin for error.