Golden State Warriors are preparing to face the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals and Draymond Green seems to believe that his team has the upper hand in the clash starting Thursday.
The Warriors have won three rings, but lost twice in their five Finals trips so far. However, Green stated that no team beat them when they were fully healthy. Green was referred to the 2016 and 2019 NBA Finals.
“Nobody had beat us. No one has ever beaten us whole. Ever. Has not happened yet. In 2016, I got suspended from a game [in the Finals],”Green told Marc Spears of ESPN’s Andscape.com.
“In 2019, Kevin Durant goes down [during the Finals]. But then you follow that over to Cleveland, no one has ever beat us whole.”
In the 2019 Finals against a Kawhi Leonard-led Raptors team, injuries did change the course of the series. Durant had leg issues, tried to play through it and made things worse. Klay Thompson tore his ACL in Gm6 and the Warriors lost the series.
The 2016 Finals are more of a debate, considering Golden State was up 3-1 in the series. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving willed back the Cavs to the series and won the championship, becoming the first-ever team to get back from such a deficit in the Finals.
Golden State enter the Finals with an almost fully healthy team as Garry Payton II and Otto Porter Jr. are expected to be available at some point. More importantly, their superstar core is back together in the Finals again after 2019.
One thing is for sure, the Warriors will have the chance to prove Green’s statement in this year’s Finals. The Celtics, however, will not be an easy opponent.
They had to go through one of the toughest road to the Finals beating the reigning champions Milwaukee Bucks and the top-seeded Miami Heat. Both series went to Game 7 as Boston prevailed when it mattered most.
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