Draymond Green admitted that the environment in TD Garden during The Finals impacted his play in the series. Green said on his podcast in November that he was repeatedly called racist names throughout the three games played in Boston.
“It was such a beautiful thing,” Green told ESPN of closing out the series in Boston in Game 6. “It’s not something they hadn’t experienced before. So I think it’s great that they experienced it from us. With Steph Curry doing what Steph Curry does and the guy they chose to call the N-word. It was beautiful.”
Green scored just two points each in Games 3 and 4, netting a minus-13 and zero in those games, respectively.
“You usually have situations where people talk crazy, but not the entire arena,” Green told ESPN. “You’ll have a situation where an entire arena will boo you, but not what the Boston fans were doing. So, it was just a different situation than I had ever seen. It took a while to adjust to it … it was just so unexpected. It caught me off guard.”
Green said he heard “f–k Draymond” chants, and names like “b—h” and the N-word.
“Whenever you know what to expect, you can plan for it. I’ve been around for 11 years so I thought I had seen it all. But that, I had never seen before,” Green told ESPN. “I guess with this, there was no real way to prepare for it. Except mentally know what you’re walking into. When that happens I can tune it out. But that first time I couldn’t tune it out.”