On Dec. 28, the Warriors hosted the Nuggets at Chase Center. While the Warriors got some much-needed reinforcements with Andrew Wiggins coming back, Draymond Green entered the health and safety protocols and thus missed the game.

Right out of the gates, it was painfully obvious that the Warriors missed the defensive presence of Green. The Nuggets went on a 10-2 run to start the game and never looked back. A combination of turnovers, defensive breakdowns, and a lack of offensive flow gave the Nuggets a comfortable 31-16 first quarter lead, which ballooned to 60-36 at half.

“it’s not an excuse,” Head Coach Steve Kerr said. “The whole league’s missing people, we just gotta get better in terms of offensive execution when Draymond is out. Obviously we run so much of our stuff through him so that’s what we gotta do to make that adjustment.”

The Warriors came out flat offensively and defensively, and without anyone to contain last year’s MVP Nikola Jokic, the Warriors struggled to stop the Nuggets.

“It didn’t feel like our energy was right,” Kerr said. “I didn’t feel like I had them ready to play, ready to come out of the gates strong, we were turning it over quite a bit, we weren’t getting good shots.”

While Green is known to be the engine on offense, his presence on the defensive end is critical to any success. Green is a one-of-a-kind defender, as his ability to read plays before they happen is in a class by itself.

Often, the opposing team would hunt for switches and attack a mismatch, but Green blows up any chance of that by communicating with his teammates early and being involved in the action himself. And no one wants to be switched on an island with Draymond Green.

This year, according to NBA.com, Green is holding opponents to 37.8% from the field from shots greater than 15 feet and 36.6% from three.

Without the defensive anchor, the Nuggets were able to feast in the paint, outscoring the Warriors in that department 42 to 38 while shooting 41.5% from the field and 24.2% from three.

“You don’t replace a guy like Draymond,” Kerr said. “You replace it with a collective energy like we showed in the second half. To hold a team to 29 points without Draymond, that shows how hard our guys played and the adjustments that they made from an aggression standpoint. But we have to start the game that way, being the aggressor and executing better.”

The Warriors are leading the league in defensive efficiency and fourth in 3-point percentage. A lot of their success depends on the play of Green, as his ability to play the small-ball center gives the Warriors a defensive edge.

Green is more than willing to guard the opposing team’s bigs, and with a lineup that consists of athletic wings, the small-ball lineups set the tone defensively, which fuels their offense.

“It’s a big adjustment where one game he’s there and one game he’s not,” Warriors superstar Stephen Curry said. “We gotta make those adjustments to start the game off right. It’s obviously an amazing luxury to have a guy that knows our system [he] is part of the reason why our system works and you have other guys that have to step up and fill those roles so we gotta make adjustments until he comes back.”

The Warriors have another chance at redemption when they face the Nuggets Dec. 30.

(Photo credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)