Draymond Green does a lot of things well on the basketball court. There's a reason why he has been a huge part of four championship-winning iterations of the Golden State Warriors over the past eight years. His defensive knowhow and instincts are top-notch, and his playmaking is almost always pinpoint. But his scoring game is far from the best, as being in stacked teams through the years has rendered that part of his game surplus to requirements.
However, Green showed that he has not completely abandoned that facet of his game after he turned in a head-turning scoring performance in the Warriors' crucial Game 5 victory over the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night.
Draymond Green, despite coming off the bench, ended the night as the Warriors' third-leading scorer, tallying 21 points on an eye-popping 8-10 shooting from the field. And despite averaging just 8.7 points since 2016, Green entered Game 5 with an aggressive mindset after gaining confidence off his Game 4 performance. Coming off the bench didn't hurt at all as well.
“Tonight, coming into the game, I just knew where my spots would be. That's one of the luxuries of coming off the bench. You can kind of feel the game out, see what's going on. If there's a need for something, you can come in and assert yourself into that need. And if you see something that's working, you can go and fill that,” Green said after the Warriors' 123-116 victory to take a 3-2 series lead over the Kings, per Anthony Slater of The Athletic.




Draymond Green on his season-high 21 points tonight pic.twitter.com/wOLXeKBKuq
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) April 27, 2023
To put Green's Game 5 in even greater perspective, this is the first time he has scored over 20 points since December 25, 2019, and just the 27th time (out of 907 total career games, playoffs included) he has scored in double figures on 80 percent shooting from the field or better.
If the Warriors were to advance to the next round, it stands to reason that Draymond Green would return to their starting lineup sooner than later. But for now, with both Green and the Warriors flourishing in this current setup, it makes sense for the Dubs to continue riding this configuration out. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.