PORTLAND, Ore. — Draymond Green loves to talk. To teammates. To coaches. To opponents. To himself. For seven seasons running, he has ranked among the league leaders in words per minute.

But in recent weeks, as the Golden State Warriors prepared for another crack at another N.B.A. championship, Green decided to do some listening. In particular, he said, he listened to his mother and to his fiancée, who advised him to keep his emotions in check, especially when it involved his interactions with referees.

“Sometimes I’m not mindful,” Green said, “and I’ll get a tech and that will just kill the energy of our team. I’ve really been focused and locked in on that, and I realized I got to a point where I was doing more crying than playing. I’m sure it was disgusting to watch, because I felt disgusting playing that way.”

No one has benefited more from that epiphany than the Warriors, who have been leaning on Green to inflict damage on the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference finals. Green, a 6-foot-7 forward, may be operating with more diplomacy than usual, but his level of ferocity feels familiar. He is merely channeling it in all the right ways.