'21 Season E1P Review: Draymond Green, Kicker of Butt and Director of Traffic

He's here to be a defensive terror and chew gum and he's all out of gum

A list of all Explain One Play articles and videos is at The new Explain One Play index. Plus visit the 2020-21 Season Reviews Guide.

To get us in the mood for next season, I’m going to run some Explain One Play highlights of 2020-21. Many of these previously were subs-only articles, but are now free as a present to our faithful off-season readers.

Explain One Play: Steph and Dray Rip KD for a Layup

We're going to look at this beautiful little play, BLOB Rip, that the Warriors run when they're inbounding the ball on the baseline. Stephen Curry is the general on this play, deciding where the inbounds pass goes, but the play’s spice comes from Kent Bazemore and Andrew Wiggins.

We also look at Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes running it in the 73 win season, Kelly Oubre and Andrew Wiggins running it oddly, and finally, Mychal Mulder and Kelly Oubre running it against Kevin Durant. KD knows all the Warriors plays, right, so he gets the defense to guard it perfectly… or do Draymond and Steph get the last laugh?

Video from 2021.02.13.GSW-BRK, 2021.02.17.GSW-MIA, 2021.02.19.ORL.

Explain One Play: Mychal Mulder and Draymond Green, I Want To Believe

Mychel Mulder stayed ready and made the most of a surprise start against the Denver Nuggets on 2021.04.23. Whenever there's a role player that's starting, GSW often run a few plays specifically for them. Draymond Green directed traffic to make sure Mulder got off to a fast start. Co-starring Stephen Curry as a decoy, Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr trying to keep up, and Nikola Jokic as a traffic cone.

Explain One Play: Steph, Draymond and Our Guy Juanito Zig Zag Out of a Trap

I wanted to talk about one of my favorite new actions that the Warriors have introduced at the beginning of May. And it's meant to be a counter to the trapping defenses that teams throw at Steph Curry. A typical reaction to a trapped pick and roll is a pass to the short roller. However, defenses can make it very tough to get that pass out. The Warriors in the Houston game (2021.05.01) and Pelicans (2021.05.03) games experimented with a new way to find the roll man with a cool new zigzag pass out of the trap.

They’ve used this a bit less as the competition got easier down the stretch, but if the going gets tough and playoff defenses try jumping the short roll pass, I expect to see this come out of the toolbox again.

Co-starring Stephen Curry, the gravity man; Draymond Green and Juan Toscano-Anderson, the zigzag readers; Looney looney as a hard cutter, and Jordan Poole and Mychal Mulder as responsible citizens.

---