'The respect factor is there': Pascal Siakam and Danny Green respond to Klay Thompson's comments
Thursday, November 29th, 2018.
It’s a date that the Toronto Raptors have surely had circled on their calendars for some time. Whenever you have a game against the planet’s greatest basketball team on the horizon, there’s going to be some added hype during the build-up to tip-off.
Klay Thompson, one of Golden State’s ‘Splash Brothers’, tossed some coal in that hype train when he stated that the game could be a “preview of June” and “they’ve got something really special up there in Canada right now.”
Toronto Raptors Pascal Siakam and Danny Green are very aware of that, but don’t want to be looking too far ahead.
“With the team that we have and kinda the way we’ve been playing…, it’s a challenge,” said Siakam on a recent episode of Inside the Green Room with Danny Green. “Playing great teams is always a challenge and as a competitor, you always want to go out and try to get a win.”
Now in his third season with the team, the 24-year-old has been making an impact so far in 2018-19. Through 22 games, his average of 14.3 points per game is nearly double the 7.3 he was averaging last season. His performance will be crucial if Toronto hopes to pick up their first win against Golden State in over four years.
The Raptors last victory against the Warriors came way back on Mar. 4, 2014 when DeMar DeRozen put up 32 points to lead Toronto to a 104-98 win at the Air Canada Centre. Steph Curry scored a game-high 34 points in that one. Golden State will be without Curry’s services this time around, though.
Since that contest, the Raptors have lost eight straight meetings with the Warriors. Within that time Golden State has won three NBA championships and big changes have occurred north of the border. Of the roster that knocked off the Warriors back in 2014, only Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas remain in Toronto.
“I feel very confident in this team,” said Green. “It’s a group that’s really similar in the style of play… I like the lineup changes that we can throw at them and they can throw at us.”
More than anything, Toronto can enter the game with their heads high knowing that Golden State doesn’t see the 18-4 Eastern Conference leaders as pushovers.
(Um, duh.)
“I think the biggest thing is knowing that they respect us,” said Green. “The respect factor is there…”
So… can we just fast-forward to Thursday night already? This is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
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