For a guy who was just 2-for-6 from the field, Draymond Green sure knows how to impact the game. Other than scoring, the soon-to-be second-time All-Star did a whole lot of everything as the Dubs opened their three-game road trip with a 122-107 victory in Memphis on Friday.
GAME LEADERS
Green tallied his 18th career triple-double, a rare type of triple-double at that, with 12 rebounds, 10 assists and a franchise-record 10 steals. Oh, and he also had five blocks and four points, and he was a +26 in his 38 minutes on the floor.
Playing against a Grizzlies team that had already beat them twice this season – the only team with multiple regular season wins against the Dubs in the same season since 2014-15 season – the Warriors took it to the Grizzlies and wound up with one of their more complete efforts of the season. They shot 50.6 percent from the floor, knocked down 15 3-pointers and had 31 assists on 39 made shots while issuing just 12 turnovers.
Defensively, the Dubs held the Grizzlies to 39.1 percent shooting, tallied 13 blocks and forced them into 18 turnovers, many of which came via steals that led straight to Warriors scoring opportunities on the other side of the floor.
While Green got the first triple-double of the rebounds-assists-steals variety in NBA history, other Warriors players also had standout performances. Klay Thompson led the Dubs with 36 points and Andre Iguodala came off the bench for a season-high 22 points on 6-for-7 shooting.
Thompson had the hot hand at the start, scoring the team’s first 11 points of the game. In fact, the first quarter was almost halfway over before a Warriors player not named Thompson entered the scoring column. The reigning 3-Point Contest champion will defend his crown next weekend in New Orleans, and if this game was any indication, Thompson is in prime form. The Splash Brother knocked down four of his eight 3-pointers in the first quarter, and he actually out-scored Memphis by himself over the first seven and a half minutes of the game.
In the second quarter, the Grizzlies scored eight unanswered points to get within five points, but then Iguodala provided a spark and the Warriors responded with an 8-0 run of their own to push the halftime lead back up to 13. Iguodala had six of those points in the final 1:01 of the second quarter, including a fast break dunk.
The Warriors would put up a 36-point quarter in the third quarter and led by as many as 26 points before the Grizzlies began trimming away at their deficit in the fourth quarter. And while the Grizzlies overcame a 24-point deficit last month, history wouldn’t repeat itself this time, and Draymond Green was a big reason why.
Now 45-8 on the season, the Warriors will continue their road trip on Saturday when Kevin Durant makes his first return to Oklahoma City as a member of the Warriors.