Kendrick Perkins had a harsh assessment of Draymond Green’s Game 3 performance
"He was nonexistent."
The Celtics defeated the Warriors 116-100 in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday, taking a 2-1 series lead in the process. Jaylen Brown (27 points), Jayson Tatum (26 points), and Marcus Smart (24 points) led Boston.
Game 4 tips off at TD Garden on Friday at 9 p.m.
Also on Wednesday, the Red Sox extended the team’s winning streak to seven with a 1-0 win over the Angels (who fell to a 14th consecutive loss).
Kendrick Perkins talked Draymond Green after Game 3: Following an active Game 2 performance in which he helped the Warriors even the NBA Finals against the Celtics, Draymond Green had a quiet night in the Game 3 loss.
Managing just two points, three assists, and four rebounds before fouling out, Green bluntly acknowledged afterward that he played “like s***.”
But considering his pregame exchange with former Celtic Cedric Maxwell, Green drew particular attention in the postgame discussion from another former Celtic: Kendrick Perkins.
“How can Draymond Green do all the things he did in Game 2, talk all the noise he talked coming into this game, and not do a damn thing in the game?” Perkins asked during a postgame discussion on NBC Sports Boston.
“To me, he was preparing more for his postgame podcast than he actually was for the game,” Perkins quipped.
Perkins reference to Green’s podcast, “The Draymond Green Show,” was a point of discussion in the postgame. Former NBA player Isiah Thomas questioned Green’s commitment to playing basketball over the podcast, though he received pushback from fellow NBA players also on the NBA TV panel.
Ultimately, Perkins focused on Green’s on-court performance.
“I’m not afraid of Draymond Green. I’m going to speak my mind when it comes down to him. He was nonexistent,” said Perkins. “He poked the bear, who [is] Jaylen Brown, and then he didn’t help his team fight the bear. That was the key tonight.”
Trivia: Robert Williams became the second Celtic in team history to record at least three blocks and three steals in an NBA Finals game (Williams actually finished with a fourth block). Can you name the only other player in team history to do that in the finals?
(Answer at the bottom).
Hint: He was the third overall pick in the 1980 NBA Draft.
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- ‘They’re just talking’: Draymond Green unfazed by Boston crowd, but pair of other Warriors disapprove
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- Red Sox send Angels to team-record 14th straight defeat
- Matthew Judon getting on same page going into 2nd season with Patriots
- Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart join rare company in Celtics’ win
- Gov. Baker and California Gov. Newsom make bet over NBA Finals
- Net change: Warriors find Boston baskets set too high
- Red Sox place Kiké Hernández on 10-day injured list with right hip flexor strain
- ‘I loved everybody in Boston’: Mookie Betts on his time with Red Sox, 2020 trade
- Bill Walton took the Orange Line to Celtics-Warriors Game 3
- NFL’s Jack Del Rio defends comparing George Floyd protests to Capitol riots
- ‘Draymond wasn’t even born when I was playing’: Cedric Maxwell responded to Draymond Green
Enjoy Marcus Smart’s postgame soundbites: And his sunglasses.
Deuce Tatum and Nelly:
On this day: In 1946, Ted Williams hit a 502-foot home run at Fenway Park in the second game of a doubleheader Red Sox sweep of the Tigers.
Williams’s first inning blast landed on the head (and more specifically, in the hat) of Joseph A. Boucher, a construction engineer who had never sat in the Fenway bleachers, according to Boston Globe reporter Harold Kaese.
When Kaese caught up with Boucher after the game for a comment, he delivered a satisfying summary of Williams’s feat.
“How far away must one sit to be safe in this park?”
Daily highlight: Al Horford throws an accurate deep ball.
Trivia answer: Kevin McHale
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