After LeBron James recently chimed in with his thoughts on the Warriors' 2022 NBA Finals victory over the Boston Celtics, Draymond Green took to his podcast to respond to the Los Angeles Lakers star's claim about Golden State having a higher basketball IQ.
Green discussed the comments on his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show,” agreeing with the 39-year-old’s take on the situation, though he elaborated that he believed the Warriors were more prepared for the bright lights of the NBA Finals.
“That to a certain degree is very true,” Green said. “I think we definitely had a higher IQ at the time. But I think we also had more than just higher IQ though, it’s also [that we had] higher IQ in the moment. You get in these playoffs sometimes and this is the NBA Finals we’re talking about, sometimes those lights can get a little bit brighter than you expect.”
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However in Green’s mind, it was not just that the players had better situational awareness and IQ, but also that the coaches on the Warriors’ bench did a much better job of adjusting throughout the series.
“So, I think our basketball IQ was higher, but also at that time our coaching staff’s basketball IQ was higher, the adjustments that we made throughout that series, it made all the difference," Green said.
In the first episode of the “Mind the Gap” podcast, James and his cohost, former NBA player JJ Redick, discussed how the Warriors defeated a very talented Celtics team in six games to win the NBA title.
“There are moments in the game that a coach cannot prepare you for, film can’t prepare you for, the history of the game can’t prepare you for, where you have to have a basketball IQ to make adjustments right away, if you don't have that level of mind frame or capacity,” James said.
Golden State Warriors
“… I believe that when Golden State beat Boston, it came down to IQ in the Finals. Because Boston, to me, had the better talent. Boston had the better talent. But it came down to IQ. People say experience - IQ."
After two injury-plagued and disappointing seasons, the Warriors regained their championship composure during the 2021-2022 NBA season to capture the NBA title, stunning many pundits who doubted that the team could win championships after Kevin Durant's departure.
While the Celtics took a two-games-to-one series lead, the Warriors reeled off three consecutive wins to close out the NBA Finals with their fourth title in eight seasons.