OAKLAND – He was there at the start, a towering offensive presence, pouring in 18 points in the first quarter.
He was there at the end, gobbling up six rebounds in a stressful fourth quarter and handing out six assists in the fourth quarter and overtime Saturday night.
And there he was afterward, in the Warriors locker room, sitting in front of his cubicle, ice packs wrapped calf-to-thigh on his left leg and knee-to-thigh on the right leg because that foot was shin deep in a bucket of ice water.
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Draymond Green wouldn’t have it any other way, because the end, a battle-scarred 111-108 victory over the relentless Denver Nuggets, justified the agony.
[RECAP: Instant Replay: Green answers call, Warriors top Denver in OT]
Green carried the team, understanding there would be limited support from his teammates because Stephen Curry left in the second quarter with an injury and Andrew Bogut fouled out in the fourth and five others – Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli, Leandro Barbosa, Brandon Rush and James Michael McAdoo – weren’t able to play at all.
So Green sprinkled his name all over the stat sheet: 29 points, 17 rebounds, 14 assists, four steals and a blocked shot. Another triple-double, his NBA-leading sixth, and this one was absolutely essential to staving off the Nuggets after they wiped out a 26-point Warriors lead and pushed the game into overtime.
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“Spectacular,” was the way Klay Thompson described Green’s performance, which made him the first player since Larry Bird in 1987 to post a triple-double with at least those totals across the board.
This was the second straight game in which Green achieved a triple-double, making him the first Warrior to manage the feat in back-to-back games in the same season.
“There is nobody on this team that competes harder than Draymond,” interim Warriors coach Luke Walton said. “There are some games he’s not great. But when the team needs him and we’re down and we have injuries up and down the lineup, he does whatever it takes in games.
“Tonight we needed his rebounding, his playmaking and his scoring. He did all three of them.”
Contributions came from several Warriors, most notably Thompson with 26 points and seven rebounds and Ian Clark with 15 points (on 7-of-8 shooting). Marreese Speights hit a big bucket coming out of a timeout inside the final minute of OT.
“We knew Draymond was going to be able to impact the game in all sorts of ways, like he usually does,” Curry said. “Klay made some huge shots down the stretch. Mo and Ian, those guys stepping in and playing big minutes and stepping up.
“After giving up a lead like that and being able to respond, that’s huge. Gutsy win by them, especially with how shorthanded we were.”
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Down to seven players when Bogut fouled out with 3:22 left in regulation, the Warriors were running on empty in the final minutes, on little more than stubborn will in OT.
“That’s who we are,” Green said. “That’s what we’re built on. Just fighting. We’re not a team that makes excuses. We started the game with nine, we ended up with seven. But after losing the lead, we could have put our heads down and pouted. We continued to fight. We made the necessary plays down the stretch to win the game.
“That was a championship effort.”
Green couldn’t have described his performance any better. At 6-foot-6, the power forward’s his height falls in the range of shooting guards and small forwards. But his game wanders into the realm of centers or point guards, whichever he needs to be. He has enough heart for a pride of lions.
“He can have four points and still be the best player on the floor,” Walton said of Green.
Green didn’t say a word about his therapeutic wrappings, and nobody asked because we all knew how he’d respond – with a shrug and a nod. He seemed to wear the wraps as badges of honor.
If that’s what it took to keep the Warriors perfect (16-0) at home this season, extending to 34 their overall win streak at Oracle, Green is willing to accept it.