HOUSTON — As Draymond Green made a triumphant walk off the floor Thursday night after one of his injury-riddled team’s most impressive wins of the season, a 115-113 overtime victory over the Houston Rockets, Green wore a smile on his face and moved with a pep in his step. It was the same proud walk through the same tunnel, the 14th-year veteran has made many times in Toyota Center after some of the biggest wins of his career.
Green stopped to give a big hug to Prime analyst Candace Parker as he went to take the turn toward the visitors’ locker room and then took a few more steps into a human tunnel of Warriors staffers waiting to give him high fives and a locker room full of teammates who clapped for him with joy when he entered. Green, after struggling in recent weeks to find a rhythm without injured stars Stephen Curry (knee) and Jimmy Butler (ACL), just a day after celebrating his 36th birthday, knew that this particular game, with a team missing many key players, meant a little more to him.
“Once you got the history we have with this organization in this building, it doesn’t go away,” Green said at his locker stall with an ice pack wrapped around his knees and one on his elbow. “Regardless of what the roster is, we’re still here. And we won all those games and series here, so I still feel that.”
In an up-and-down season that has produced more interesting storylines than any other team in the league, the Warriors put together one of their most complete efforts of the season against a loaded Rockets team led by future Hall of Famer and former Warrior, Kevin Durant. Playing without Curry, Butler, Kristaps Porziņģis (illness), Gary Payton II (ankle), Moses Moody (wrist), Seth Curry (sciatica) and Will Richard (knee), the Warriors found a way to win by getting contributions up and down the roster.
Brandin Podziemski scored 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 40 minutes, playing what Warriors coach Steve Kerr said was probably the young guard’s best game this season. Podziemski agreed and credited his improved rebounding to family members who pointed out to him that he could be better on that end of the floor. Gui Santos played a team-high 42 minutes and made a difference in various areas. De’Anthony Melton scored 23 points and made several big plays late.
Al Horford played 33 minutes and delivered one of his best performances of the season with 17 points and six rebounds. In 35 minutes, Green scored 10 points, dished out eight assists, grabbed five rebounds, played good defense throughout the night and did his best to lock down Durant when he could.
After it was over, Kerr smiled softly — looking and sounding like a proud father as he described one of his team’s best games of the season.
“This is a good building for us,” Kerr said. “We won some playoff series here. A lot of good memories in that locker room. It’s interesting. We’ve won playoff games over the years here, and series; we won Game 7 here. You win a game like tonight, it feels the same.
“You’re just trying to win, and winning is just an amazing feeling, and even though this is a regular-season game, just to see a bunch of guys compete and come out with a win, it feels like a playoff win. It really does. The beauty of competing and playing in the NBA, coaching in the NBA, is you get nights like (Thursday) where everything’s worth it.”
Aside from beating a talented Rockets team that came into the game with a 38-22 record, what really made this win special for the Warriors was that they did it with a bench consisting of three two-way players (Nate Williams, Malevy Leons and LJ Cryer), a guard (Pat Spencer) who recently got his two-way contract converted and a 25-year-old center (Quinten Post) who spent time in the G League last season before making his way to the league and finding his place on this team.
In Cryer’s first meaningful minutes as a pro, the undrafted Houston product was the most impressive off the bench. He scored 12 points after missing the last several weeks because of a hamstring injury, hit some big shots late and did it all after not even thinking he would be on this trip. Cryer, who recently welcomed a baby to the world with his longtime girlfriend, thought he was headed back to the Warriors’ G League affiliate in Santa Cruz earlier this week.
Like the rest of his bench mates, he got his opportunity, and he took full advantage of it.
“They probably didn’t even know who we were when we checked in,” Cryer said of the Warriors’ hard-playing, mostly G League-filled bench.
The win was so good, and so unexpected, that Green said he received several text messages from an excited Curry after it was over. The two-time MVP was basking in the reflective glow of this win from almost 2,000 miles away.
“A bunch of exclamation marks,” Green said of Curry’s texts. “(He said) ‘Y’all did that.’ So it’s good.”
Green heaped praise on Kerr for his ability to navigate the Warriors through the last few weeks. He said he’s appreciated how the veteran coach has talked to the team through its trying times over this stretch, and it’s why he acknowledged that this win “feels a little better than most.”
No player has dealt with more scrutiny recently than Green. He’s been written off by some in the league, and questions remain about how he will fit on this team as he nears the end of his career. He hasn’t played at the same consistent level this season that he’s been at throughout so much of his Warriors career. One win over a longtime rival doesn’t change that he has struggled at various points throughout the year.
However, it does offer a reminder of a constant trait the Warriors have carried with them, no matter who has been on the floor: They still play hard and play to win — no matter who is out there. The fact that it all paid off Thursday night wasn’t lost on the man who has helped deliver so many other big wins here.
Other teams, with less motivated players, might have folded up shop for the season. The Warriors, at the end of a long year and seemingly destined to be in the Play-In Tournament no matter what they do, still play tough each time they hit the floor.
“You don’t become a championship organization with guys like that,” Green said of teams that may roll over under similar circumstances. “And that’s what we are. We’re a championship organization. There’s a standard here. You have to play hard. That’s a non-negotiable.”