Draymond Green spent the better part of an hour on his Tuesday podcast going series by series through the first round of the 2026 NBA playoffs, and the segment that stood out most for Detroit fans was the moment he put the Pistons' 3-1 comeback against Orlando squarely on the broad shoulders of Tobias Harris.
"Cade Cunningham 32 and 12. Tobias Harris 30 and nine," Green said, recapping the Game 7 win. "Tobias on 61 per cent shooting. Tobias stepped up in every way in that series — from veteran leadership to making big buckets when they needed to, to being the second scorer for those guys, to being that steady force throughout that entire series. Tobias stepped up."
Detroit head coach JB Bickerstaff said it more bluntly in his postgame. Per Green, Bickerstaff told the room, "Nobody can say s--- to me about Tobias Harris." Green understood the protective instinct, but added a layer.
"What I warn coach JB of is — first round series. Player and y'all the number one seed," Green said. "You're going to need Jaylen Duren to play better. Tobias stepped up in Jaylen Duren's absence, if you will. But you're not supposed to be down 3-1 in the first round as the number one seed. So it's a hole that they dug themselves and they had to dig themselves out of. Kudos to the Detroit Pistons that they did dig themselves out of it. However, we can't just completely stamp guys after a round-one series. He did what he's supposed to do — no question. But now you got to go do it again, because you're supposed to win the second-round series, right?"
Green reserved his X-factor crown for someone else. "Isaiah Stewart was a dominant force in that series defensively, protecting the rim, bringing a level of physicality that you got to bring to the game when you're down 3-1 if you're going to have a chance to come back. I tip my hat to Isaiah Stewart just getting it done by any means necessary. Being that force — you see the young fella struggling, it's all good young fella, I got you, watch this. The X-factor in that series for the Pistons was Isaiah Stewart."
On the other side, the Magic woke up Tuesday morning to news that head coach Jamahl Mosley had been fired after a third consecutive first-round exit. Green was sceptical of the simplest narratives.
"You got Jaylen Suggs making a boatload of money. A lot of people didn't feel like he played up to par. Going into Game 7, he had missed 31 of his last 39 shots. What do you do with Jaylen Suggs? Is he back next year? Can you even trade that contract if you wanted to?" Green asked. "A lot of people have thought over time that they needed to choose between Franz and Paolo. And watching this playoff series before Franz went down, it didn't look like they needed to choose between those two guys. Now things change when you lose. People see things differently. But I don't know that the answer is getting rid of one of those two guys with the way they played down the stretch."
Green also weighed in on the loudest replacement rumour in Orlando. "We've heard rumours about Tom Thibodeau. Is he the best fit for these guys? One thing we know — Coach Tibs is great and brings a winning culture to any team that he goes to. But is he the coach for this group? For a team that needs and lacks offensive creativity, I love Coach Tibs. I think he's going to need to bring in an offensive mastermind with him and delegate some of that to make this roster fit together if he was to take this Orlando job."
Green's biggest endorsement of the night was reserved for Paolo Banchero's frustrated, head-on press conference after the Game 7 loss. Banchero refused to say his team was good enough. Said Green: "Love how he didn't sugarcoat his answer. That's how you handle it. You don't run from it. Run straight to it. We lost. We fell short. Acknowledge it head on. Now what are you going to do about it this summer?"
