Draymond Green Had High Praise For Thunder Core in Loss

After Oklahoma City knocked off Golden State, Draymond Green was complimentary of the Thunder's core.

Oklahoma City played a complete game Friday night, knocking off the Warriors in a back-and-forth 138-136 thriller. The young Thunder squad took punch after punch from Steph Curry and company, and still found a way to win. It said a lot about this team's maturity and competitive spirit.

Now 14-7 overall, the Thunder is in sole possession of the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and the team is playing inspired basketball. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren have formed a talented big three and the two-way fire power is evident.

Draymond Green took notice of the Thunder's impressive roster from top to bottom after the game, and was very complimentary of the core Sam Presti has put together.

"They got a great head of the snake in Shai," Green said in the postgame press conference. "First team all NBA last year for a reason. Chet will possibly be a generational player, so you look at adding him into the lineup. Jalen Williams is one of the most impressive players with the ball in the NBA. He can shoot the ball, threes, mid-range, get to the rim. He's 6-foot-8, he has size, he has strength, he can pass the ball. They present their challenges."

Golden State drilled 19 3-pointers compared to Oklahoma City's 5-of-29, and the Thunder still came out on top and scored 138 points. Like Green said, the trio of Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Williams is so hard to slow down. Those three players combined for 87 points and led the Thunder to victory.

With the current core, Oklahoma City can go far. Both Holmgren and Williams are still young with plenty of room to improve, and Gilgeous-Alexander is a legitimate MVP candidate. The rest of the league is catching onto how talented Oklahoma City is as a team, and Green and the Warriors saw it first hand on Friday.

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