Draymond Green didn’t sugarcoat it while talking about the Warriors’ defense following Golden State’s 129-104 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday night.
“Our defense sucks,” Green said, via The Athletic. “And we’re 5-5. And they go hand in hand.”
The Warriors currently have the 16th-rated defense in the league, which isn’t awful, but is a far cry from their dominant defenses from years past. It’s still early in the season, and Golden State is working some new players into the rotation.
They have some younger guys playing expanded roles that they’re not necessarily accustomed to, so some growing pains were to be expected. It’s not time to hit the panic button, but they definitely need to tighten up defensively.
Green, the longtime defensive leader of the team, shouldered the blame for Golden State’s early defensive struggles.
“I’ve failed,” he said. “If our defense looks as sh-- as it does, I’ve failed. So you can send as many messages as you want, until we do it, I’m failing at it.”
Execution is one thing, but effort has been an issue for the Warriors early this season, and there’s no excuse for that. It certainly doesn’t line up with Green’s vision for the team.
“I think we need to be a hard-playing team,” Green said. “We need to be great on the defensive end and we need to be hard-playing. If those two things happen, everything else falls into place. But we must be a high-energy, high-effort team and we must be a great defensive team. If we can’t reach those milestones, we don’t stand a chance.”
The Warriors have a tough stretch of schedule coming up that includes a game against the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder and two games against the San Antonio Spurs. We’ll learn a lot about them as a team in the coming days, and weeks, but one thing is for sure – if the defense isn’t up to snuff, Green won’t hesitate to let it be known.