Draymond Green lamented his and his team’s performance vs. the Wizards in their tough road loss. “I feel healthy physically….but I played terrible,” said Green.
When the Warriors struggled while Draymond Green missed two months with a lower back injury, the common refrain was that his return would solve a lot of the issues that plagued them.
Two weeks into Green's return, and that uptick in the Warriors' play hasn't necessarily happened. It doesn't help that Steph Curry sprained a ligament in his left foot shortly after Draymond came back and has missed the last five games.
But after another poor performance in the Warriors' 123-115 loss to the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena on Sunday night, Green was his own harshest critic.
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"I feel terrible," Green told reporters in Washington after finishing with seven points, six assists and five rebounds in the loss. "I'm healthy, but I feel terrible. But it will come."
When asked to elaborate, Green uttered something that's hard to imagine, knowing how important he is to the overall success of the Warriors.
"I'm playing terrible," Green said before pausing to gather his thoughts. "I've never really been on a team that gets worse when I'm on the floor and that's kind of where we are right now. Some things I can correct, some things will come with time. Just kind of what it is but we're definitely worse when I'm on the floor, that's for sure."
In normal times, Green and Curry are plus/minus monsters, putting him eye-catching positive numbers in the category. But over the last five games Draymond has played (he missed the win in Miami), he has had a minus point-differential in four of those games, including minus-20 against the Wizards and minus-24 in the loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night. And he only played just over one minute of action in the fourth quarter at State Farm Arena, with coach Steve Kerr opting to play a unit that was getting defensive stops.
Green clearly isn't 100 percent healthy, and it always takes athletes time to get their conditioning back after missing a prolonged amount of time. But this extended stretch of poor play isn't going unnoticed by Draymond himself.
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The Warriors have seven games left in the regular season for Green to get things ironed out, starting with a trip to Memphis to take on the Grizzlies on Monday night.
