Draymond Green Placed on Minutes Restriction in Highly-Anticipated Return

Draymond Green will be back on Monday but will not be allowed to go full-bore just yet.

Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

Draymond Green (back) will be back in action for the Golden State Warriors for the first time in over two months Monday night. But he will be on a leash.

According to head coach Steve Kerr, while there are no parameters set yet, the four-time All-Star will be held to a minutes restriction when he makes his much-anticipated return against the Washington Wizards Monday.

“He’ll be on a minutes restriction. I don’t know exactly what it’ll be,” Kerr said. “We’ll bring him along slowly and bring him up from there.”

Before last week, the Warriors were entirely out of sorts. From losing eight of 11 games, including five straight, to blowing countless double-digit leads, the Warriors appeared to be far from the team that had held the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference for much of the regular season.

In its last three games, though — including a dominant 122-109 statement win over the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks — Golden State has re-discovered its identity.

“I think it would have been tough to bring Draymond back when we’re in a tailspin,” Kerr said. “We have some momentum now, guys are feeling pretty good and It’ll be much smoother to bring Draymond back and get him in the fold.”

As for the rest of the Warriors’ roster, Monday can’t come soon enough as the team is very much looking forward to welcoming back arguably one of its most important pieces.

“I can’t wait for him to get back. He can essentially run the point guard on our offense,” Warriors guard Klay Thompson, who scored a season-high 38 points against Milwaukee said after the game. “He sets great screens and he just makes the right read 90-percent of the time.

“And then you combine all of that with his fire to compete, he’s one-of-one,” Thompson continued.