Brash Almost to a Fault, Draymond Green Providing Edge Cavs Just Don’t Have

OAKLAND, Calif. — LeBron James made a point before the NBA Finals of explaining what an underdog in life he was “growing up in the inner city, having a single-parent household.”

There’s no question what an underdog Stephen Curry was in basketball, a skinny kid hardly recruited and happy to get a mid-major ride to nearby Davidson.

Draymond Green has it going on both counts.

Green is an underdog in life and in basketball, and he has emerged from it with an edge that James and Curry can’t even understand—much less duplicate.

Now that Golden State has romped to a 2-0 series lead, it’s undeniable how important it is to have this true rabble-rouser by one’s side in the NBA Finals.

It would also be so very Draymond to ascend to Finals MVP mere days after he let up and let down his Golden State Warriors team in the middle of the Western Conference Finals, which he bluntly and proudly described as “the first time in my life I didn’t respond to critics.”

Since Green said those words, the Warriors haven’t lost.

It happened after Golden State’s Game 4 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Warriors reeled off three consecutive victories to avoid elimination and stun the Thunder.

They’ve now handled the Cleveland Cavaliers easily twice to start the NBA Finals, as Green dominated the 110-77 Game 2 thrashing on Sunday night.

Green is Golden State’s intangible. His boldness rises above Curry’s niceness, Klay Thompson’s quiet and even Steve Kerr’s good nature. Green gives the Warriors their edge, and he drives this team in unquantifiable ways.

Green is being celebrated for scoring 28 points in Game 2, but his hitting open three-pointers is gravy. The most impressive thing he did on Sunday night wasn’t making shots or even playing his usual excellent on-ball defense.

The help defense Green provided on James’ drives was sheer basketball brilliance, full of awareness, timing, quickness and fearlessness.

It’s the stuff that often goes unnoticed, which is why Green doesn’t pass the eye test as an NBA superstar. But he has worked to improve his obvious skills while embracing all the dirty work that Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love mistakenly believe could soil their images.

In Game 1, Green’s defensive rotations were so quick that sometimes he got where he needed to be before the Cavaliers could even swing the ball over there. One time, Love was so shocked to catch the pass and look up to find Green in front of him on the baseline that Love froze as if he’d just seen an apparition.

These are the great basketball things Green does. He does other …

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