Analyzing Draymond Green Late Scratch in Golden State Warriors Win & Whether he Should Stay on Bench

But and I bring that up because what the Warriors were doing time and time and again, and this is apropos for referencing Gary Payton the second, they were back cutting the Nuggets to death. The Nuggets, and this is something that a lot of teams have been struggling with playing the Golden State Warriors this year, are back cuts. Something that you learn on the playground practically. There's nothing complicated about a back cut pass. It's rooted entirely in ball movement. It's a little surprising to me that every team in the NBA is not moving off the ball consistently like this to create opportunities for your offense, but GP2 is the back cut king. He's just almost like a little mouse out there, just moving all over the place. I don't know if the 6'2 height helps him in this regard in terms of being under the radar and causing defenders to just lose sight of him. I have no idea. But the Warriors were murdering, slaughtering the Nuggets tonight with back cuts. Just back cut, back cut. And those back cuts sometimes resulted in points. Sometimes they resulted in three-point attempts that were wide open. And I bring that up because GP2 is this team's back cut king. And on top of that, it went three of eight from beyond the arc. GP2 with 15 points in this game tonight to go along with three rebounds and two steals. Some of those steals were clutch, by the way, like on the wrong side of the court's half, if that's making sense for the Nuggets. Meaning the Nuggets would be inbounding a ball, and there's GP2 just poking that ball right out, whether it was because of Bruce Brown not paying close attention or Jamal Murray. So GP2 had a great game as well. 19 minutes, 23 seconds of play, 15 points on the night. Side note, speaking of going back to... So great job by GP2. Speaking real quick of players who did not play. We mentioned Chris Thaps-Prazingas with the illness. And again, we don't know if this is POTS-related, the T in POTS standing for tachycardia, which is, I think, the general term for what people call this condition based off very loose conversations. If anybody wants to elaborate or correct, please jump in. But in addition to Prazingas not playing due to the tachycardia, potentially due to the tachycardia, who knows? Draymond Green was a late scratch. This was a very late scratch. Draymond Green was expected to start this game tonight and last minute bows out. And again, for the folks out there who think that Draymond Green is at this point... Let me start this over again because I lost my train of thought for just a second. I want to kind of reorganize this. For those of you who think that this team is better off without Draymond Green, tonight was a sign in your favor. Tonight was a good example of you being right on that front. Draymond ducking out very last minute. My personal feelings on this is Draymond should just sit out every game that Stephen Curry is not in. Just my take on it. What is the point? He has never, rarely if ever, excelled when Stephen Curry is not on his team. Now, you can make a very strong argument that the 2016 Olympics are an example of where Dray can still thrive, but that was a long ass time ago and that was a team chock full of superstars. But in modern times, if Steph doesn't play, a lot of you think Dray shouldn't play and I agree with you, especially at this point in his career. Well tonight, Draymond Green did not play very late scratch. He was listed as being out because of left lower back soreness and it paid off. So Draymond decides, I don't want none of that yokage. I don't want none of that valanchunis. I'm just going to relax and it paid off. It paid off for your Golden State Warriors. Again, for those of you that prefer watching Golden State Warriors basketball moving forward with no Draymond Green in the lineup, this helped your case is what I'm trying to say.