LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The mouth-watering match-up is set, but Draymond Green, the emotional lynchpin of the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors, says it will be business as usual against a Houston Rockets team designed to dethrone them.
“You know, they have made it known that their team is built to beat us,” Green said of the Rockets after the Warriors dispatched the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday to book their Western Conference finals showdown with Houston.
“(It’s) kind of their obsession or whatever you want to call it. All that stuff is cool. You can build your team, obviously, you want to build your team to beat the defending champs because that’s usually what you’ve got to do to get a championship.
“That stuff has been said for about a year now. It’s time to play.”
Green is averaging 13.1 points, 11.5 rebounds, and nine assists in the playoffs.
Green has also keyed a formidable Warriors defense that boasts the best defensive rating in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
They’ll open on the road on Monday against the Rockets, who supplanted the Warriors as top seeds in the West this season with a league-leading 65 regular-season wins.
“We won two championships in three years,” Green said. “We don’t have to run around talking about how bad we want to play somebody.
“We want to win another championship and it doesn’t matter who is in the way of that.”
© Agence France-Presse
