The Warriors played Thursday night’s game agains the Brooklyn Nets without starting power forward Draymond Green. And you could tell. Yes, the Warriors came away with a 117-101 victory, to raise their record to 26-4, but it certainly looked different than a lot of their games — particularly in the first half.

The Nets led 65-49 through 24 minutes, before the Warriors’ picked up their defense in the second half to flip the game.

Here’s link to “Warriors WrapUp”: the postgame show on 95.7-FM The Game.

The more you watch the Warriors, the more you realize just how important Green is. In fact, you could make the case he’s the most important Warrior, or if not that, how about the team MVP. On the surface, that would seem to be a little farfetched. After all, Stephen Curry has won the past two MVPs and Kevin Durant won the MVP the year before that.

And Klay Thompson ain’t too shabby, either.

But the reason you could make the case Green is the most valuable Warrior is because he is so much different than Curry, Durant or Thompson. All three of these players are gifted offensively. They are scorers first and foremost

Green does all the other things. He’s a defender; he’s a rebounder; he’s a passer; he’s an emotional leader. If you took Green off the Warriors, they’d have nobody left to do some of the things he does so well.

But if you take either Curry, Durant or Thompson off the Warriors, they’d still be left with two prolific scorers — and Green. That’s pretty darn formidable. But without Green, the Warriors are left with three scorers — great scorers, no doubt — but they’d surely lose some offensive diversity … not to mention they’d be worse at the defensive end.

Is Draymond Green Golden State’s MVP? It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Other topics on “Warriors WrapUp”:

–The Warriors turned the game around in the second half by turning the Nets over — a lot. Brooklyn committed 18 turnovers in the second half and finished the evening with 26 total. Those turnovers led to 32 Golden State points.

–Zaza Pachulia and David West had a lot to do with the Warriors’ win on Thursday. Pachulia finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds and David West had 10 points and six rebounds. Warriors coach Steve Kerr made a point of saying afterward that those two players gave the Warriors exactly what they needed without Green.