Warriors forward Draymond Green had a heated exchange with his head coach, Steve Kerr, in a third-quarter huddle during Monday night’s win over the Orlando Magic before leaving the court and heading to the locker room to calm down.
“We got into it obviously and I took the timeout just because I thought we lost our focus there a little bit,” Kerr said. “We had it out a little bit and he made his decision to go back to the locker room to cool off and that’s all I’m going to say about it. Everything is private. I’ve got nothing further to add.”
The incident came days after Green was ejected in Saturday’s game against Phoenix for consecutive technicals.
“Tempers spilled over and I just thought it was best that I get out of there,” Green said after Monday’s game. “I don’t think there was a situation where it was going to get better so it was just best to remove myself. That’s it.”
Green said he would have been happy to reenter the game after his break in the locker room but Kerr chose not to send him back on to court.
“I thought I owed it to my teammates to be there. I’m not going to quit on my teammates,” he said.
Golden State’s 15-15 record is hardly what this group expected at this stage of the season, and Green noted “that’s probably why tempers are flaring.”
“Basketball, it’s what we do,” he said of what caused the frustration. “We play basketball, it’s an emotional game. People lose their emotions sometimes, it happens … I just thought that was best for me [to go to the locker room]”.
Stephen Curry said he believed Kerr and Green were “just having a good conversation” before the forward left for the locker room. Curry added: “That’s kind of for them to talk about, not me … I’m pretty sure we know how to be professional.”
Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski said Green “was a great teammate on the bench” after coming back.
Asked if he thinks the issue will linger, Kerr said: “No.”
“The group’s ready to go, you could see in the game tonight,” Kerr said. “We need Draymond. He’s a champion. We’ve been together for a long time. All we can do is the rest of the group keep pushing, keep getting better. I thought this was one of our better games. I thought the first half was brilliant – we just didn’t make shots. I thought Draymond played great.”
Green has been with the Warriors for his entire career, since the team drafted him in 2012. Kerr has been his head coach since 2014, and they have won four NBA championships together.
“We’ve been at this now for a long time,” Green said. “Sometimes you’re with people for a long time and there’s a level of comfort and shit happens. We move forward.”