Draymond bluntly explains NSFW hot-mic confrontation with Hield originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

The Warriors snapped a three-game losing streak with a down-to-the-wire 109-105 win over the Phoenix Suns on Saturday, but a prevailing storyline came from an in-game interaction between Draymond Green and teammate Buddy Hield.

With Golden State leading 75-74 with 5:36 remaining in the third quarter, a hot mic picked up Green yelling at Hield following a Warriors turnover.

“Wake the f–k up. Or go sit the f–k down. S–t,” Green could be heard saying to Hield.

After the game, Green explained that he simply was trying to do his job as a leader while gauging an effective way to get his point across with a teammate he still is getting familiarized with.

“As a leader you have to try different methods. Sometimes you go to a guy, sometimes you don’t,” Green told reporters after Saturday’s win. “I’ve played with Buddy now for 30 games. Trying to learn what makes him tick, you’ve got to try different methods. Jonathan Kuminga, I go to, and I say, ‘Hey, this is what I need you to do. Look at this this way.’ He’ll go do it. If I yell at him, I don’t think he’s going to do it. He [won’t] listen.

“Steph [Curry], sometimes I go to him, sometimes I yell at him. He reacts to both. As a leader, one thing I learned from [Michigan State coach Tom Izzo] about leadership, you have to lead guys that make up a team. But leading someone doesn’t look the same as leading the next guy. And you got to figure out what makes guys tick. What gets that guy going. So, I’m still figuring that out. To go at Buddy the way I did, we needed that in that moment. We were flat, just turned the ball over. Lock in. That’s no shot at Buddy. Dennis [Schrӧder] was at me the other day. He’s been here for two weeks and he was at me the other day. Great, it is what it is.

“Mics catch everything today. I don’t care. I’ll say it right into the mic. I don’t give a damn”

Green remained confident the tactic was neccessary, further explaining his reasoning for going at Hield the way he did.

“It was needed and we need Buddy Hield to play great,” Green said. “We need Buddy Hield to make shots and we have all the confidence in the world that Buddy will make shots. But we got a post, feed it? You got a 6-foot guy on you? Get the ball there. It’s simple.

“We’re 16-15. We don’t love this. So, do we just keep doing the same thing and sit back on our hands like, ‘Oh it’s going to change at some point.’ or do you make a change? I know what it looks like to win. I know what it takes to win. So, as a leader, it’s on you to figure out what it takes to help this team.

“If that’s mixing it up with a guy every now and then, if that’s yelling, then you do that. But don’t be the guy that can’t be yelled at and I’ll never be that guy. A teammate yelled at me? Great. I may say something back. Oh well, guess what? Buddy said something back to me. We’re not dictators. It’s just what you doesn’t go and everyone has to listen. He said something back, I said something back, he said something back, I said something back.

“We moved on and that’s how it’s got to be. It’s not always going to be peaches and cream. Whoever thinks that are idiots. We lost three in a row. We have a turnover at a critical part of the game where we need to get a good shot. Let’s get thats shot.”

Green, a four-time NBA champion who has 157 career playoff appearances, cited his own experience in big games as a key factor for attempting to offer Hield instruction in the heat of the moment.

“I’ve happened to play a lot of championship basketball, a lot of meaningful basketball. Buddy hasn’t had the opportunity to play a lot of meaningful basketball in this league,” Green said. Guess what? It’s our job to make sure he understands what that means.

“If people don’t like it, so be it. That’s why they don’t have four championships and I do.”

Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast