After yet another disappointing home defeat Monday night, this time against a depleted New York Knicks team, Draymond Green spoke out about the Warriors’ difficulties at Chase Center this season.
On the most recent episode of his eponymous podcast, Green highlighted his dissatisfaction with how Golden State continues to struggle at home, despite their recent series of road triumphs over tough opponents.
“The Knicks loss is our third straight loss at home, which again, I don’t quite understand,” Green said in a statement.
“We seem to be playing a lot better and more connected on the road then we are at home, and that’s a problem because we keep kind of having this week at home, week on the road, week at home, week on the road, and it’ll pretty much be like that through the end of the year.”
After criticizing the Warriors’ 17-18 home record, Green confessed that the team’s performance at Chase Center was insufficient for a deep postseason run.
“Honestly, it is unacceptable. If I knew what was going on, I would absolutely tell my teammates, but we can’t seem to figure it out,” Green added. “And while you’re at home, you should feed off the enthusiasm of the audience. Everybody should perform better at home, but that is not happening for us.
“So, there are probably 14 games remaining, and we need to figure it out at some point because these games are very important to us. You can’t keep taking one step forward and two steps back, which is what we’ve been doing.
Green has been the Warriors’ emotional core for quite some time, so his emotions are definitely shared by the rest of the team. While Golden State has improved this year after Green’s return from an extended suspension, the team has struggled against some of the league’s finest.
The Warriors’ loss to the short-handed Knicks drops them to 5-5 in their last ten games, making a top-six seed in the Western Conference playoffs even less likely than before.
With challenging games against the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves coming up, Green and the rest of the Warriors understand that they must play better as time runs short to climb the conference standings and escape the play-in.
As things stand, Golden State is the No. 10 seed in the West and will meet the Los Angeles Lakers in a loser-go-home one-game playoff in the play-in round.
Green and the rest of the Warriors understand that their continuous erratic play will not suffice in a high-stakes playoff game, and they will need to end the season playing much stronger basketball at home in order to make a deep postseason run.