SAGINAW, Mich. — Mary Babers-Green walks around gingerly with an old medial collateral ligament injury, but through the pain, she still goes to work.

By day, Draymond Green’s mother is a campus patrol officer at the local middle school. On this night, she was on top of her game as one of the Warriors’ most boisterous fans.

“This game is irritating,” she said, letting everyone within earshot know what she thought of the Warriors’ sluggish start against the Los Angeles Lakers before delivering the punch line: “This game is making my knee hurt.”

She laughed, and the family and friends surrounding her in the restaurant howled.

“My knee hurt,” Babers-Green said. “My head hurt.”

She cracked a smile.

Life is good for Babers-Green and her son, who will play in his home state against the Detroit Pistons on Saturday. After he won an NBA championship and was rewarded in the offseason with an $82 million contract, Green has emerged into a triple-double machine and potential All-Star game starter.

Walks the talk

Green is becoming a household name and backing up all the trash talk he does on the court. Asked recently if he had any role models in expressing supreme confidence in interviews, Green named Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant and Rasheed Wallace.

“And I grew up in the house of Mary Babers,” Green added.

When it comes to where Green got his outspoken personality, look no further than his 47-year-old, social media-savvy mother, who tweets in between yelling at the television.

“I used to tell her all the time, ‘I bet you they can’t hear you.’ She’d get mad at me,” LaToya Babers, Green’s sister, said smiling.

After the Lakers scored, Babers-Green exclaimed, “Letting this little bum … what’s his name? Is that Swaggy P?”

Told that player wasn’t Nick Young, she replied, “I don’t know him. Don’t care.

“I hate when they let sorry teams stick around. Blow ’em out.”

Babers-Green has more than 11,000 followers of her Twitter account, which is sometimes just as unfiltered.

One follower mailed her the DubNation shirt she wore Thursday as she fired off her one-liners at Buffalo Wild Wings. She had invited Facebook friends to show up to watch the game with her — and have fun talking trash on social media while doing so.

“Let’s get the rust out. #donotgetsentimental,” she typed in her phone as the Warriors struggled at the start of a game in which Bryant was playing for the last time in Oakland.

“Okay Dray if you ain’t going to play…ah take a seat! LETS GO!” she tweeted after her son clanked a 3-point attempt that would have given the Warriors the lead in the second quarter.

Babers-Green insists she’s not lying when she says she blocks about a hundred Twitter users per day because they irritate her. She scrolled through her phone to show a Facebook thread in which she defended her son when others ridiculed the idea he could be an MVP candidate.

“You know what I found out? That a lot of people talk basketball, but a lot of people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about,” Babers-Green said.

The 5-foot-11 Babers-Green grew up playing basketball herself but rarely could get along with coaches and stick it out on teams.

“I had the worst attitude ever,” she said. “I was tough. I’d grab the ball, then go. I got the rebound, and pushed it. Draymond passes. I didn’t pass.”

Encouraged to speak

Babers-Green empowered her children to speak their minds.

“One thing I always allowed my kids to do is be real … to tell me the truth,” she said. “If there’s something I’m doing that you disagree with or that you didn’t like, tell me. That’s how we solve our problems. Anything that was irritating them, they got to talk about it. My kids were free. We had an open relationship. They didn’t have to fear anything.”

Green, the youngest of his mother’s three children, did just that and expressed his feelings on the court as well.

Torrian Harris, Green’s brother, recalled a childhood pickup game when they played on opposing teams. Green became so upset with his older teammates about not being able to touch the ball that when he finally got it, he tossed it to Harris on purpose.

Games of one-on-one in the backyard with Green could turn into spirited arguments.

“It was like, ‘No, you fouled. No, you traveled. No, you double-dribbled,’ ” Harris said. “We were there all night. Played till you can’t see the rims. He always wanted to win.”

Hardworking ways

Now, Green is a standout for the defending NBA champions. Earlier in the day, a co-worker even asked for Harris’ autograph while also asking why he still worked in the automotive manufacturing plant.

“I think everybody thinks it’s like, $82 million, here you go,” Harris said.

But the family hasn’t changed. LaToya Babers and Harris have children to support. Babers-Green has continued to grind through the discomfort in her knee to work and monitor the children on the second floor of the middle school.

“My floor,” Babers-Green said. “They know to get to moving because here I come.”

Babers-Green finished her day into the wee hours cheering and clapping more than she pounded the table. The Warriors won 116-98. In in his first game back from resting his ankle, Green racked up seven points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals.

“Your body is tingling,” Babers-Green said of watching Green play. “The reason why is because so many people said he would never do it. It’s way more people that said he couldn’t do it than said he could.”

“We just live through him vicariously. Really, this is like watching the world at a distance. This is like an escape from reality from what goes on every day. This guy lived the same life I lived, and now look what he’s doing.”

For more on the Warriors, see the Inside the Warriors blog at www.ibabuzz.com/warriors. Follow Diamond Leung on Twitter at twitter.com/diamond83.