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Draymond Recalls How Injuries Benefited Warriors In Previous Playoffs
Draymond recalls how injuries benefited Warriors in previous playoffs originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Draymond Green understands that injuries are part of what determines the outcome of the NBA playoffs.
Green was asked if he thought the Warriors could have won the NBA Finals this season had Steph Curry not sustained a Grade 1 hamstring strain in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“I wholeheartedly believe if Steph was healthy, we could have done that,” Green told reporters on Thursday. “But I once won a championship where Kyrie Irving got hurt in the NBA Finals and Kevin Love got hurt in the [NBA playoffs]. Do I think we still would have won if they didn’t get hurt? I do believe so. But we’ll never know. That’s just the nature of the sport that we play.
“Injuries are a part of it, and they’re unfortunate. So, you can’t take the good and be like, ‘Ah man, we won a championship, and it doesn’t matter that somebody was hurt.’ On the flip side, you can’t sit here and be like, ‘We would have won had Steph not got hurt.’ ”
During the 2015 playoffs, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love sustained a dislocated shoulder that required surgery. Without him, the Cavaliers still made the Finals against the Warriors. Disaster struck again for the franchise when guard Kyrie Irving fractured his kneecap in Game 1. Even with the otherworldly play of LeBron James in that series, Cleveland fell to Golden State in six games.
The nature of competitive sports like basketball is that players will inevitably sustain injuries. Even the Warriors had their fair share of unlucky injuries that derailed championship aspirations during the 2019 Finals.
“So unfortunately, this time luck wasn’t on our side and Steph Curry got hurt,” Green said. “But we’ve delt with it before. Kevin Durant got hurt. Klay Thompson got hurt. So, you start to take a peek. It happens every year somewhere. It may not be here; it may be another team. But when it [doesn’t go your way] you can’t be the guys that go up there and say, ‘Man, we would have won if.’ In a perfect world, probably [we would have won], but the world isn’t perfect.”
Between Durant’s torn Achilles and Klay Thompson’s torn ACL, Golden State lost the 2019 championship to the Toronto Raptors. Green knows that to win in the NBA, you need certain things to go your way, and it didn’t work out for the Warriors this season.
Now, Green, Curry and Jimmy Butler will have a long summer to rest up and refocus on the 2025-26 NBA season. With a full offseason of conditioning and training camp ahead of them, the trio still is optimistic that their title window hasn’t closed.
