Draymond Green Shares 9x Champion’s Advice for Jalen Brunson & Co as Knicks Face Unusual Situation

When the Mecca goes mute, something’s gone horribly wrong… or unexpectedly right, depending on who you’re rooting for. Madison Square Garden was rocking. Knicks up double digits. Fans pounding their seats. And then? People started… leaving. Not trickling. Walking out. With five minutes left in a Conference Finals game. Draymond Green saw it all… and couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah yeah, we was sitting up there with him,” Draymond said on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show, describing the surreal vibes from the Garden’s final stretch. “I had a bird’s eye view… I was really shocked. You like to think that Knicks fans would want to take all of it in… and so I was shocked to see about four or five minutes to go, a few fans leaving.”

If Draymond Green had a message for Jalen Brunson and the Knicks, it wasn’t just critique. It was a strategy, and it came straight from a 9-time NBA champion. Green pivoted from disbelief to anticipation when talking about Game 2. He’s been in these environments. He’s heard that Garden roar. And more importantly, he’s been in the locker room when Steve Kerr, the 5x champion player and 4x championship coach, laid it all out.

“I’ve obviously been in this situation a bunch of times with Steve Kerr,” Green said. “Let’s go in here, play our game, let it fly… we letting it rip. You open? Let it rip. We ain’t got nothing to lose… and then he says, ‘Let’s make that crowd nervous. Let’s put some doubt in that crowd.” Now that’s the assignment! Make MSG sweat. Kerr’s mantra isn’t just about silencing the crowd, it’s about flipping their energy into unease. “You want to hear the angst from the crowd,” Draymond explained. “Because if they miss them first few shots, it’s going to be like—oh—it’s going to be so much angst. That’s what I’m here to see.”

Draymond Green said, “The energy in this city is crazy,” despite fans leaving Game 1 of the Knicks vs the Pacers early 

But wait. MSG, leaving early? In the playoffs? Pretty unusual, right? But Draymond Green wasn’t alone in clocking the withdrawal. Baron Davis, who was also in the building, admitted he tried to beat the parking rush. “We up 14… I’m thinking like damn bro, it’s going to take us about an hour and a half if we don’t be the first to walk outta here.” So he dipped. Or tried to. But just outside the seating area, Davis ran into JR Smith, who waved him over to sit with him and Carmelo Anthony. He decided to stay. And what happened next? MSG turned into a collective anxiety attack.

“Next thing you know, Indiana down eight… then down five… now we over there panicking,” Davis laughed. “All we gotta do is protect the ball, make some free throws… then when Haliburton hit the shot, I was like, ‘There’s no way this s— going to go in.’” It didn’t go in. But for a moment, it almost felt like the Pacers had snatched it. And while some fans missed the drama entirely, those who stayed watched the crowd go from euphoric to eerily still.

“It was some big Knicks fans leaving on my side, too,” Draymond added. “I was like, ‘How you feeling?’ And he was like, ‘Man, it’s going to depend on how the outcome of this game [goes].’ And he left. Like a minute [left]. I don’t even know if that dude made it home—he probably crashed something.”

That eerie MSG silence? Draymond Green couldn’t stop thinking about it. “The energy in this city is crazy,” he said. “But once the game ended… silence. Me and Chuck were standing up five minutes before the end like, ‘New York City’s about to be great tonight,’ and then it just fell apart.”

He’s not wrong. The Knicks haven’t hosted a Conference Finals in nearly a quarter century. Their fans are running high on emotion, low on patience, and extremely aware of their postseason fragility. And now, Draymond Green’s watching to see whether the Knicks come out steady—or whether Haliburton & Co. steal that nervous silence again.

Because the Knicks don’t just need to win Game 2. They need to stop their own fans from giving up before the game’s over. Or as Draymond put it: “New York City was about to be great tonight… and it just fell apart.”

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