LOS ANGELES: Draymond Green exploded for a seventh career playoff triple-double Saturday as the Golden State Warriors rallied for a 110-99 victory over the Trail Blazers in Portland and a 3-0 lead in the NBA Western Conference finals.
The two-time defending champion Warriors trailed by as many as 18 in the second quarter, but with Green driving them they produced another dominant third period to seize control of the contest and the series.
No team has come back from an 0-3 deficit to win an NBA playoff series. The Trail Blazers will try to fend off elimination when they host game four on Monday.
Green scored 20 points with 13 rebounds and 12 assists, keeping the Warriors afloat in the first half before superstar Stephen Curry came alive with 21 of his 36 points after the interval.
“There aren’t many guys in the game that can (affect both ends of the floor),” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Green beforehand. “Draymond can do both.”
His intensity was on display on both ends of the court, and on the sidelines as he exhorted teammates to keep pushing.
Klay Thompson added 19 points for the Warriors, who were again without injured star Kevin Durant.
“All my teammates, my coaches have been telling me, ‘Draymond, get to the hole, be aggressive,’” Green said of his mindset.
“We’ve got guys out there, Steph, Klay and those guys who draw a lot of attention, so it’s on me to do my job and come through for those guys.”
CJ McCollum led Portland with 23 points. Damian Lillard, relentlessly double-teamed by the Warriors, added 19 points.
Center Meyers Leonard, making just his third start of the season, finished with 16 points.
Leonard made the most of his opportunity early, connecting on five of seven shots from the field in the first half on the way to 13 points.
The Trail Blazers, energized in front of a rowdy home crowd at the Moda Center, quickly built a 10-point lead before the Warriors trimmed it to two — 29-27 — at the end of the first quarter.
But the Blazers kept the pressure on, stretching the lead to 18 in the second quarter.
A steal by Lillard produced a thunderous dunk from Leonard, then Portland’s Seth Curry stole the ball from his superstar brother Stephen and raced for a three-pointer that made it 60-42 with 2:28 remaining in the first half.
Portland took a 66-53 lead into the locker room, but the Warriors responded with a monster third quarter, using a 22-6 scoring run to take their first lead of the game, 77-76 on a layup by Kevin Looney — assisted by Green.
Golden State out-scored Portland 29-13 in the quarter to lead by three heading into the final frame.
The Warriors pushed the lead to 11 with 4:51 remaining and the Trail Blazers wouldn’t get the deficit below eight from there.
Green triple-double fuels Warriors’ comeback win
Green triple-double fuels Warriors’ comeback win
- The Golden State Warriors rallied for a 110-99 victory over the Trail Blazers in Portland
- The two-time defending champion Warriors trailed by as many as 18 in the second quarter
Postecoglou admits taking Nottingham Forest post a ‘bad decision’
- Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September
- “There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou
LONDON: Ange Postecoglou has said he has only himself to blame for an extraordinarily brief reign as Nottingham Forest manager, with the Australian accepting he made “a bad decision” taking on the job with the Premier League strugglers.
Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September.
But infamously impatient Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Postecoglou just 39 days later, after the experienced manager lost six of his eight games in charge.
Postecoglou, reflecting on his time at Forest for the Overlap podcast, said an over-eagerness to get back into management after his departure from Tottenham Hotspur three months earlier, had been the root cause of his troubles at the City Ground.
“There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou. “I should never have gone in there. That was on me. That was a bad decision by me to go in there. I’ve got to take ownership of that.
“It was too soon after Tottenham. I was taking over at a time where they were kind of used to doing things a certain way and I’m obviously going to do things differently. I’ve got to cop that, that was my mistake. It’s no-one else’s fault.”
Postecoglou remains without a club but he has ruled out returning to Celtic, where he enjoyed a successful two-year stint from 2021-23, with the 73-year-old Martin O’Neill currently in caretaker charge of the Scottish champions until the end of the season.
“I loved Celtic, it’s a wonderful football club,” said Postecoglou, who left the Glasgow giants to join Spurs. “If I was younger, I probably would have stayed there longer. I probably would have stayed there three, four years.
“I think I could have made progress with them in Europe but at the time, it had taken me a long time to get to this sort of space, and the opportunity to join Tottenham was too good.
“In terms of going back, I don’t go back. I just don’t think that’s kind of been my career.
“Whatever the next step is, it’ll be something new, somewhere I can make an impact in, somewhere I can win things, but it doesn’t diminish the affection I have for Celtic.”
