Draymond Green got the last laugh during a thrilling Golden State Warriors’ victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night, but not before Victor Wembanyama created one of the best viral clips of the season.
The Warriors beat the Spurs, 109-108, to sweep the two-game series between the two teams. Golden State also beat San Antonio, 125-120, on Wednesday. Stephen Curry absolutely take over down the stretch on Friday, scoring 14 of his 49 points in the fourth quarter to will the Warriors to a comeback win. Curry’s brilliance deserves its own post, but for now let’s highlight a viral exchange between Wembanyama and Green during the fourth quarter.
Green’s mind games and physicality are the stuff of NBA legend, and helped a second round draft pick turn into a first-ballot Hall of Famer. The Warriors veteran tried to rattle the young French superstar with under eight minutes remaining in regulation on a baseline out of bounds play. Watch Green immediately start yapping at Wemby after the initial call, which continued on the play below as San Antonio was for the inbounds.
Green and Wembanyama wrestled for position, and the talking continued. There’s only so much some mental warfare can do when one guy is 6’6 and the other is 7’5. Wembanyama spun off Green and slammed home the alley-oop even as Jimmy Butler came over for the contest. Green immediately started talking trash again, but he knew he was on the wrong side of an amazing play. Watch the sequence here:
Wembanyama trained with trained with Shaolin monks in China over the summer to get stronger mentally, and you can tell it paid off in this moment. Green has been able to take out so many young players over the years with his combination of mental and physical strength, but Wemby is just too damn tough.
As fun as it is to clown Draymond, he’s one of the greatest defenders of all-time for a reason. Wembanyama was limited in both games against the Warriors this week, scoring a combined 57 points in the two-game series as Curry scored 95. It’s a team effort to slow down the 7’5 freak, but Green did a lot of the heavy lifting both as a help and primary defender. I’m not sure how much the NBA tracking data is worth in this case when one player isn’t really defending Wembanyama, but it does say that Green help Wemby to 38 percent shooting and six turnovers when they were matched up against each other this week. Watch the clips here:
The Spurs were rolling, and the Warriors humbled them. We need a Spurs-Warriors playoff series again like it’s 2017 all over again. Any time Wembanyama and Green match up is going to be electric.
