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GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 13, 2016

Draymond Green

Oakland, California

Grizzlies - 104, Warriors - 125

Q. Draymond, couple questions, I guess you made sure you got the game ball on this one. How much of a struggle was it to keep that ball?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Andre almost got ahold of it, but I ran on the court with like 4 seconds to go and just stole it. It's tough, but I got it. No, we're going to cut it up and give everybody a piece of it though.

Q. You're the guy who was the most vocal about this. What was going through your mind as the buzzer sounds off and you know you've got 73 where no one else has ever gone?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Man, it's a lot of emotion. It's incredible to get here and reach this, like it's been 20 years since it's been done, and I don't know when it will be done again. But to be the team that breaks that record, that's incredible, man. It takes so much focus. Every night someone's gunning for you, and so much dedication and commitment to each other.

It's not about playing for yourself or playing for stats. It's about playing for each other, and that's how something like this is accomplished, so, man, it's incredible.

Q. 73 wins, can you talk about what that means for you?
DRAYMOND GREEN: It means I'm a part of the best team ever, and not many people can say that. 15 guys can say that and that's amazing. It means a lot to me because I've been vocal about it for a while now. So these guys to come out and back me up says a lot about this team and a lot about the character of this team. It's kind of for him to back me up and going out and saying this so early, shows why we're able to do it though because we're always trying to look out for each other.

Q. How ready are you guys now for all the questions to go from can you win 73 to how much is taken out of your tank for the job ahead?
DRAYMOND GREEN: We're going to have to play the games anyway, so may as well try to win them. At the end of the day everybody's played 82 games, and we'll be fine. We're a pretty young group. The rest or one or two extra days in the season isn't going to decide whether you're tired or not come playoff time.

So we'll be fine. Definitely ready for the questions and turn toward the playoffs now. This has been going on for quite a while, so I'm excited to get the playoffs started and everybody else, the pressure in a sense starts to add up to equalize to ours.

Q. What did you see from the show Steph put on tonight?
DRAYMOND GREEN: It was incredible. You come out, I think he needed eight threes to get to 400, and he came out not taking bad shots, not gunning. He was playing in the flow of the offense. When you're talking something like that, usually you're going to come out and miss every three. For him to come out the way he did was incredible. It's pretty much sums up the year he's had.

Q. How much of this regular season record did you guys want to use in the resume to sort of separate yourself when the conversation comes up about greatest teams ever if you have a back-to-back championship and a regular season record? How much is that motivation?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Well, I think when you're able to come to back-to-back championships and you add in this record, like there are people still going to talk, regardless of having it or not. They're still going to say, oh, it's a different era. They couldn't have done what they did in this era. So they're still going to talk, and we really don't care what they say.

But to add it to your resume says a lot. You know, it will be something that will be there forever. Not saying this record will assistant forever, but it's something that will be on our resumes forever.

Q. Is that one of the reasons you guys wanted it to be able to make the claim?
DRAYMOND GREEN: No, we don't do anything to try to make the claim to anyone. At the end of the day our championship was luck last year, and we lucked out with 73 wins this year, so that's going to continue to be the way it is, and we'll continue to be lucky. It is what it is.

No, we don't do it for that. We do it because when you look at the competitive nature of this team, we're tremendous competitors. So when you have an opportunity to do something like this, you don't just follow it, you try to get it. That's what we did. To make a claim for something, no, but it's something that we wanted and we went out and got it.

Q. Looking ahead to Houston, this is going to be the first time this group of players has faced the same team that they've already faced in the playoffs before. Does that prior history add anything to you in the series?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Not really, other than we know them pretty well, they know us pretty well. It should be a pretty good series. They're a good ballclub. Kind of haven't had the year that everybody expected them to have, but at the end of the day they still have a ton of talent. So it's not your typical 1-8 match-up, I tell you that. But we come out and we play our game, we should be fine.

Q. Seems like you were maybe the biggest force in pushing and fighting for getting the 73 for so long. Is there any relief upon finally getting it?
DRAYMOND GREEN: There is definitely a relief just to be finished with it. It's kind of been the question probably because we got to 15-0, 14-0, and everybody was looking like oh, this is where the '96 Bulls were, '95, '96 Bulls. So it's been kind of lingering overhead for that long now. So just to get it done, it's definitely a relief. But now the real stuff starts, so got a whole 'nother challenge, and that relief doesn't happen until you win a championship.

Q. You were kind of being sarcastic before about we're lucky to get 73 wins, we're lucky to win a championship. But there is a grain of truth in what you're saying to the things that you've heard people say about this team. Is that one of the things that drives this group that there are still skeptics out there that still don't believe this?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I wouldn't necessarily say the fact that people don't believe it drives us, because it doesn't, but when you constantly just hear someone talking, eventually as a competitor you're going to want to prove them wrong. So it's not the fact that they don't necessarily believe us. We're not saying, oh, so and so don't believe this so we need to do this. It's not necessarily that. It's more so we're competitors anyway, so we want to be great already. Then when you hear someone talking, just like anything else, it just adds fuel to the fire.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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