Stephen Curry spoke in depth with Draymond Green following the incident in November with Rudy Gobert, which led to a five-game suspension.
Green spoke with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne about what went through his mind in what was a similar conversation he had with Curry.
“When I watched it back, I said, ‘Damn, I held him much longer than I realized in that moment,'” Green said. “But the reality is, in those moments, you don’t know what time is. You don’t have a sense of time.”
Green compared the feeling to the intensity of Game 7 of the 2016 Finals.
“I had no clue,” he said. “You don’t have a sense of time during these things. It’s spur of the moment. Everything’s moving, everything’s going.”
Curry and Green have been teammates since 2012 and are known to have a close professional relationship.
“That’s the conversation we had,” Curry told ESPN. “I was like, ‘I worry less about what you did, but more the why and how it happened.’
“We’ve been together so long, he’s told me about a lot of the stuff that’s happened to him personally along the way. There are a lot of stressors. … But we all breathe life from him. I don’t know anybody who can replace that. He’s such a barometer for how we’re playing, how motivated we are. His effect on the room is strong. So it’s a blessing and a curse.”
Green relayed the message Curry had for him after the Gobert incident.
“Steph just said to me, ‘Listen, you’re going to do what you do because that’s your role. But we need your performance,'” Green recalled. “‘But I’m not going to tell you how to be you because I can’t do that. I’m not going to tell you to change. Only going to tell you, whatever you have to do, we need you on the court. I need you on the court.’
“I could appreciate that because I’m never going to go to Steph and say, ‘Hey, man, we need you to stop shooting.'”
