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NBA FINALS: CLEVELAND VS GOLDEN STATE

June 6, 2017

Draymond Green

Cleveland, Ohio: Practice Day

Q. You guys are up 2-0, you're in an enemy place, which you love to do, you love the aspect of the crowd against you. So how do you keep the rest of the team from any kind of complacency in Game 3?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I think that there's an understanding in between our guys that we haven't been very good over the course of the last really two years, we have been good this year in Game 3, but before that we just hadn't performed well in Game 3. And that's probably a sense of complacency. So I think guys are locked in, like I've never seen before, understand the task ahead and know that this is going to be the hardest game of the series. If we can come out on top, we put ourselves in a tremendous position, but they're down 2-0, coming home, crowd's going to be loud, they're going to give everything they have. And we definitely understand that and know that we got to come out ready to fight and just be ready for whatever, because they're going to throw everything at us.

Q. At the beginning of the season you said that you want to crush Cavs, that was the feeling in your heart. Now after these two games are you feeling that you're near to accomplish that?
DRAYMOND GREEN: No. We have been up three games to one before. There's no feeling of, we're almost there. You got to play every game like you're down. I think if you can keep that mindset you'll eventually reach the goal. But to say we're up 2-0, we're good, like we still got two more games to win and those two will be way harder than the first two. So we just got to stay locked in like we have been.

Q. You just said that your teammates are locked in like you've never seen before. What makes you say that? Are there certain things that you see in your teammates?
DRAYMOND GREEN: You just see a certain amount of focus. You see a competitive, a competitive level of where like it hasn't been matched. That's a good sign. But just the way guys have been locked in, focused on the task at hand, I mean it's been a special thing. And yet, in saying that, I think we can be so much better. I think that the first game we executed great and we had four turnovers, but we didn't really make shots.

The second game we didn't execute very well, but we made shots.

So now we need to put those two things together. But the one thing that's been constant is we have competed. We have been locked in on the defensive end. If we continue to do that, we'll always give ourselves a chance to win.

Q. How much better do you think Cleveland can be?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I think they can be better. But I think that if we continue to play our game and we get to our best, I think that we'll be just fine.

Q. Everyone calls LeBron the best player on the planet. Is Kevin making a case that he's the best player on the planet?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Number one, I think it's all someone's opinion of who they think is the best player on the planet. LeBron is a great player. But K is great. If I, I think KD is like a "create a player," if you go and create this player, and you can do everything you want to do, you're going to probably create Kevin Durant. And so he's special. But both of those guys are special. I don't think either one of them is out here playing in this Finals for the title of the best player in the world. They're playing for a title. An NBA title. So I don't think -- I think that's the last thing on both of their minds is who is going to say who is better. Because at the end of the day it don't matter. If you don't win, and someone say, oh, man, he's the best player in the world, I mean, what do you get from that?

But you get a lot more from getting a ring, so I think that's both of those guys' focus. If I had to look at it from the outside looking in, I would be willing to bet that both of them would rather have a title than that title.

Q. Yesterday Magic Johnson said his Showtime Lakers would probably have swept you guys.
DRAYMOND GREEN: (Laughter.)

Q. What are your thoughts on that?
DRAYMOND GREEN: (Laughter.) That's my thoughts.

Q. Do you think about like historical matchups how you guys stack up against some other teams?
DRAYMOND GREEN: No, I don't, because I know it can never happen. First off, the game is completely different than it was back then. Nowadays, if you can't shoot a three, you're a liability on the floor. That wasn't the case back then. So I never understand when people try to compare eras and say, oh, this team could have beat this team or they couldn't have beat that team or this player is better than that player. It doesn't make sense to me because you're kind of talking two different games, for real. So I never really understand that, nor do I get off into it. They were great in their time, we're great in our time and respect that.

Q. You guys have gotten so many comments from players of that era of previous eras about stuff like this. Do you ever tell yourself that when you're at that point to try and not be like that to give players of the new era credit or do you think you'll be defensive of what you have of what you guys accomplished as well?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I think if you're, if you have self confidence, you don't really care about what who is coming after you is doing. I mean, you care, you want to see them do well. So for me it's not going to be to try that, like I don't necessarily, I don't foresee myself doing that. If they're great, they're great. Respect what they're doing. I think if that's, if you have full fulfillment in what you did, then it's not really, you know, we would have done this and we would have done that. You know, I think we would say we would have ran them out of the gym. But is that true? I don't know. We'll never know. But in the same sense, I don't think they were as fast as we are. So I sound stupid, right? No, I think I sound stupid because that's how all of it be sounding to me. It is what it is.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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