Draymond Green pinpoints the biggest Warriors' problem this season

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Draymond Green pinpoints the biggest Warriors' problem this season

Jonas Panerio · Basketball Network

Thu, Dec 18, 2025 ·

4 min read

The Warriors are the late-game choke artists

The Warriors have two of the most reliable offensive weapons in crunch time in NBA history — Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler. These are players who have shown time and time again that they can single-handedly take over a game and hit clutch shots when it matters most. Yet, this season has been a different story for the Warriors in late-game situations.

With a 5-9 record in clutch games (defined as games decided by five points in the final five minutes), the Warriors have struggled to close out games and secure wins. Dray said that continuing on this damning path will come back to bite them in the behind when the playoff race goes down to the wire.

The Warriors' previous five games have seen them play in three clutch games and they've lost two of them, including one wherein Curry exploded for 48 points, highlighted by 12 three-pointers.

"You have these great opportunities — Steph going for 39, Steph going for 48 — where you need to capitalize on these wins and we're not doing that," Green said on his podcast.

The former Defensive Player of the Year pointed to their bad habits as the reason for their slippage, explaining that these tend to show up when the stakes are high.

"Right now, I think we've been a team that's had bad habits. And those bad habits may not show up in the first quarter or second quarter, but when you have bad habits, they show up in the most inopportune times," he said. "When it's time to win and you've built bad habits, those bad habits are going to show."

Turnovers and a porous GSW's defense

The Warriors have always been prone to turnovers. However, in the past, they could live with such mistakes because of their dominant offense and ability to outscore opponents. But with the roster no longer as dominant as it once was, the margin for error has significantly decreased.

This season, the Dubs are coughing the ball up 16 times a night, good for 25th in the league. In his defense, Draymond did not shy away from admitting he's the one making the lion's share of these mistakes, averaging 3.2 turnovers a game.

"We need to take care of the ball and that starts with me," he stressed.

Defense is another thing that's high on Green's list of things they must address, saying they're breaking their own momentum by letting the other team score so easily.

"Defensively, when you're on a run in the NBA, you have to make it hard for people to break that run," Dray noted. "If you don't make it hard for people to break the run, every time you start to go on a run, they just break it. You can never build momentum," he said.

The Warriors have a lot of things to clean up. However, with the veteran leaders they have, people shouldn't make the mistake of writing this team off. With an eternity of basketball left to be played, the Warriors have plenty of time to turn things around and assert themselves in the West.

This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Dec 18, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.