Green: Wins Over Cavs, OKC and Rockets ‘our Best Week of the Season'

It may have helped that they had been at home for roughly three weeks.

It surely was to their benefit that the NBA schedule provided three days without a game before they confronted perhaps one of the most rigorous weeks of the season.

The Warriors, however, still had to do the work. They still had to finish.

They still had to beat the team that had roughed them up 22 days earlier, and then squelch another squad coming into Oracle Arena on a wave of emotion and, finally, take to the road and get back at a team that handed them a loss in Oakland.

Done, done and done. And in such a fashion that forward Draymond Green referred to it as "our best week of the season."

In putting away the Rockets 125-108 on Friday in Houston, the Warriors closed out the traditional worker's week with a 3-0 record against three teams they could see in the postseason. They'd already routed the defending champion Cavaliers 126-91 on Monday and struck down the Thunder 121-101 on Wednesday.

"It's three good teams in a row," Kevin Durant told reporters in Houston. "We definitely wanted to come out and make a nice statement, and I think we did that.

"We always can get better. We can't relax against Orlando, Miami and Charlotte, teams that can creep up on you and have been playing well lately."

The Magic, Heat and Hornets -- all dreadful to mediocre -- are the kinds of teams that force the Warriors to compete. They don't stir the senses like the Cavs or the Thunder or the Rockets, three teams with credentials that demand attention from a Warriors team that sometimes cruises against lesser competition.

So this week was not just about winning games. These weren't just wins, they were emphatic statements, profound evidence that the team remodeled last summer around the addition of Durant is coming together in the heart of the season.

The defense was tight, with Cleveland shooting 35.2 percent, OKC 42.2 percent and Houston 20.0 percent from beyond the arc, which is the only place that matters for the Rockets.

The Warriors resorted to one of their signature turbocharged third quarters to separate from the Rockets. Shooting 61.9 percent and scoring 9 points off Houston turnovers, the Warriors outscored Houston 37-22 in the third, stretching a five-point halftime lead to 20 going into the fourth quarter.

The Warriors now have an NBA-best differential of plus-250 points in the third quarter this season.

"It's just something that we put an emphasis on," Green said. "Coming out and getting off to a good start in the second half. Not coming out flat and giving another team life or letting them go on a run and then trying to make it up. And once we go on our run, we can get rolling pretty well and make it tough on other teams."

That was the case this week, as the Warriors topped 50 percent from the field in all three victories.

Durant scored 32 points against Houston and averaged 31 points over the last three games. Stephen Curry put in 24 points and averaged 22.7 for the week. Green, meanwhile, averaged 12.7 points, 10.7 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 3.7 blocks.

"It was our best week of the season because we've gotten better each time we've stepped on the floor this week," Green said. "And that's what's most important. It's not about blasting these three teams. It's about getting better, and trying to reach our end goal. In order to do that, you have to get better each and every time you step on the floor.

"We did that these three games, so that's the most important thing. That's why it's been a good week, not because of the margin of the wins that we had."

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