The Golden State Warriors received their first big test of the NBA season when star point guard Steph Curry suffered an ankle injury against the LA Clippers. The team announced that Curry would be re-evaluated on Friday, meaning he would miss at least the two-game set against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Having won this back-to-back against New Orleans, the Warriors defeated the Pelicans 124-106 on Tuesday and 104-89 on Wednesday. This was a very impressive showing for the Warriors, who are 4-1 on the season.

Draymond Green was key in both of those games for Golden State because he was primarily assigned to the Zion Williamson post. While Williamson had a strong performance on Tuesday, scoring 31 points on 12-of-19 shooting, he struggled mightily in the second game. Williamson, who scored just 12 points on 5-of-20 shooting, was kept in check by Green and the rest of Golden State’s defense.

When asked about facing Williamson on back-to-back nights, Green made a strong statement.

“It hurts so bad,” Green said of facing the Pelicans star two nights in a row. “But it was fun, man. It has gotten much better. I played with him for the first four years of his career. “You could tell in previous years that he was in better shape, he was starting to take the game more seriously… Now you could tell he was working in the gym and improving himself to be better.”

Green added, “He got the best of me last night and I just wanted to come out and have a better defensive performance than last night.”

Green takes great pride in his defense and was able to bounce back with a strong performance at this point against a truly tough opponent in Williamson.

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