Kevin Durant doesn't want to talk anymore about his first return trip to Oklahoma City, which is due up on Saturday night.
"I ain't got nothing for y'all!" Durant said after the Golden State Warriors' 123-92 annihilation of the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, per Bleacher Report's Erik Malinowski.
Draymond Green, on the other hand, has never shied away from the spotlight, for better or worse. On Friday, he spent less time lighting a fire under Durant and more time shielding him from attention, intentionally or otherwise, by putting together one of the most remarkable performances in NBA history.
Green finished the Warriors' 122-107 win over the Memphis Grizzlies with the first triple-double on record without double-digit points (four points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists, 10 steals, five blocks). According to ESPN Stats & Info, he's just the second player ever to log double figures in boards, dimes and thefts.
And had he been slightly more prolific on the scoreboard—or doubled his swat total—he would've joined Alvin Robertson, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon with the fourth known quadruple-double in league history (the NBA started tracking blocks and steals in 1973-74).
One more point, and Green would've had himself a 5x5—five or more in each of the five major statistical categories. Instead, he became the first player ever to fall short of that mark on points, per FanRag Sports.
Not that Golden State needed Green to score more.
Klay Thompson caught fire early, scoring 14 points in the first quarter, and stayed hot, hitting 8-of-15 from three amid a 36-point night. Stephen Curry chipped in 18 points and five assists. Andre Iguodala poured in 15 of his 22 points in the first half. And Durant did his part, putting up 24 points and nailing 11-of-14 from the free-throw line.
But it was Green, at a game-best plus-26, who glued those efforts together and turned defense into offense—sometimes literally.
He didn't single-handedly hold the Grizzlies to 39.1 percent shooting, though he did plenty to pester Marc Gasol into 4-of-14 from the field with four turnovers. He wasn't solely responsible for the Warriors piling up 30 or more assists a league-best 35th time, though his unselfishness on that end is nothing if not contagious.
Green has long been the engine that drives the Warriors' two-way dominance. This season, he's driven what looks to be the most efficient offense in NBA history and a defense that sits within sniffing distance of first place, just behind the San Antonio Spurs.
Those feats are practically par for the course with a team as talented as Golden State. Last season, the Warriors led the league in offensive efficiency and finished fourth on the defensive end while winning an NBA-record 73 regular-season games. The year prior, they wound up second in offense and first in defense en route to the franchise's first championship in 40 years.
Green was integral to both runs—for better and, in the case of the 2016 Finals, for worse—and will be just as critical to Golden State's pursuit of another banner in 2017. On a club loaded with sharpshooting limbs, he's the connective tissue that keeps it all together. He does the dirty work while his superstar teammates razzle and dazzle with their fun finesse. He's the instigator, the pot stirrer, on a squad known best for its nice guys and carefully manicured public personas.
Taking the heat doesn't make Green a martyr, not when he's brought some of the past negativity toward him on himself. But every title-worthy team needs that dude—to do the little things and some big things and all the other things that may or may not show up on the stat sheet.
Green won't be able to protect Durant from whatever vitriol he may hear in OKC. Nor can he guarantee another Larry O'Brien Trophy for Golden State, especially if his signature rage reaches beyond even his own control.
But, for one night at least, he soaked up plenty of shine as only Green can: by doing everything other than putting a leather ball through a hoop at a high rate, and doing it better than anyone in basketball.
Another Nasty Night For the Knicks
Feb. 10, 2012: Linsanity lights up Madison Square Garden. Jeremy Lin outguns Kobe Bryant, 38-34, and the New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 92-85.
Feb. 10, 2017: Only insanity remains at MSG. Fans cheer for Charles Oakley, who was tossed from the World's Most Famous Arena on Wednesday then banned from his old stomping grounds and trashed by Knicks owner James Dolan during a radio appearance on Friday.
That madness pushes the feud between team president Phil Jackson and forward Carmelo Anthony to the backburner, even as Anthony scores 33 points in a failed attempt to avoid defeat to the Denver Nuggets, 131-123.
Meanwhile, the brightest international star at the Garden isn't Kristaps Porzingis, who finishes with 17 points, four rebounds and two assists. Instead, that honor belongs to Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic, who torches New York for a career-high 40 points to go with nine rebounds, five assists and two steals.
Oakley, watching from home, takes the high road.
And the Knicks, without their former enforcer in the crowd, are helpless to stave off another defeat—their fourth straight in the Big Apple—or a tongue lashing from head coach Jeff Hornacek.
Heat Keep Streaking
ESPN's Zach Lowe was pleased to see the Miami Heat morphing into a lean, mean winning machine:
This is awesome. This is literally the most improbable prolonged winning streak in NBA history. This is why we follow sports: A group of castoffs sitting at 11-30 works, and works, and works, and suddenly lands upon a connective magic that carries them all to a higher plane.
After watching the Heat hold off the Brooklyn Nets, 108-99, Lowe must've been positively giddy. With Goran Dragic spinning his way to 21 points and five assists, James Johnson scoring a game-high 26 points off the pine and former castoffs Tyler Johnson (18 points), Rodney McGruder (11 points) and Okaro White (10 points) all finishing in double figures, Miami managed to extend its shocking spurt to 13 games.
And that was without Dion Waiters, who had averaged 22.0 points on 49.4 percent shooting (49.2 percent from three) during the Heat's unbeaten streak before spraining his left ankle.
Now, a team that once looked like a prime candidate to tank the rest of the season sits just a game back of the Detroit Pistons in the East's race for eighth place.
"Good things happen," team president Pat Riley said during a recent season-ticket-holder event in Miami, per the Associated Press' Tim Reynolds. "That's why I love this team because they have that attitude."
And that's why spectators around the Association—not just in the Lowe household—should be hopping on the Heat bandwagon if they haven't already.
Brow Beats KAT...Again
Karl-Anthony Towns looked like he might finally get the best of Anthony Davis. The Minnesota Timberwolves' Kentucky stud-turned-No. 1 pick exploded out of the gate with 19 first-quarter points, all but assuring that he'd score more than 20 points against the New Orleans Pelicans for the first time.
Towns finished with 36 points and eight rebounds on the night, but the Brow once again got the best of his fellow former Wildcat, both one-on-one and team-wide. Davis, who dropped 13 points of his own in the opening frame, finished with a game-high 42 with 13 rebounds and two assists to carry New Orleans to a 122-106 win.
The Wolves were down Zach LaVine, who's done for the rest of the 2016-17 season after tearing his ACL, but his absence couldn't quite explain a lax defensive effort that saw the Pelicans shoot a sizzling 60 percent from the floor and 48 percent from three.
The result moved Davis to a perfect 4-0 against Towns and only added to the former's formidable edge in head-to-head production.
Bucks Battle Without Jabari
On Thursday night, the Inside the NBA crew clowned on the league for charging $6.99 to watch the Milwaukee Bucks host the Los Angeles Lakers.
But the Lakers' 122-114 win over the Bucks on Friday was no laugher—not entirely, anyway. After ceding 47 points in the first quarter and falling behind by as many as 27, Milwaukee managed to make a game of things against L.A. despite missing Jabari Parker in the team's first game since he re-tore his left ACL.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks' lone remaining cornerstone, played that way, piling up 41 points, eight rebounds, six assists, two steals, three blocks and one vicious slam over Lakers rookie Brandon Ingram.
The team's first All-Star since Michael Redd helped to spark a 14-0 rally in the fourth and close to just five points with under a minute to play in the game. Michael Beasley (15 points) and rookie Malcolm Brogdon (18 points) both hit double digits off the bench. Khris Middleton, in his second game back from a hamstring injury, chipped in six points, six assists and three steals.
But no other starter so much as sniffed 10 points. Thon Maker, tapped to fill Parker's spot, finished with seven points on 3-of-6 shooting (1-of-4 from three) with six rebounds.
"I'm going to be an All-Star," Maker told Bleacher Report's Howard Beck.
Unless the 19-year-old can play like one this season, the Bucks, now 22-30, will have a tough time cracking the East's top eight.
Friday's Final Scores
Denver Nuggets 131, New York Knicks 123
Miami Heat 108, Brooklyn Nets 99
Golden State Warriors 122, Memphis Grizzlies 107
Los Angeles Lakers 122, Milwaukee Bucks 114
San Antonio Spurs 103, Detroit Pistons 92
New Orleans Pelicans 122, Minnesota Timberwolves 106
Washington Wizards 112, Indiana Pacers 107
All stats and salary information via NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and listen to his Hollywood Hoops podcast with B/R Lakers lead writer Eric Pincus.