Warriors' Green brushes off historical comparisons

June 6 (Reuters) - Forward Draymond Green believes comparisons between his Golden State Warriors and great NBA teams of the past are pointless because of changes in the rules and the impossibility of head-to-head battles.

The Warriors have won an NBA-record 14 consecutive games to start the playoffs and will take a 2-0 advantage over the Cleveland Cavaliers into the pivotal Game Three on the road at Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday.

Their dominance as they chase a second title in three years has led some to wonder how they stack up against Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s and Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls of the 1990s.

"The game is completely different than it was back then," Green told reporters on Tuesday.

"Nowadays, if you can't shoot a three, you're a liability on the floor. That wasn't the case back then."

The Warriors have assembled some of the best three-point shooters the league has ever seen, helping them win their postseason games this year by an average of nearly 17 points per contest.

Asked about Johnson's comment that his "Showtime" Lakers team would have swept this year's Warriors, Green merely laughed.

"That's my thoughts," he said after a chuckle.

Green said former players wanting to compare their teams to the Warriors did so out of a feeling of insecurity over their own accomplishments.

"If you have self confidence, you don't really care about what who is coming after you is doing," he added.

"If you have full fulfillment in what you did, then it's not really, 'we would have done this and we would have done that'. If they're great, they're great. Respect what they're doing."

The Warriors have been so great during playoffs that the contest has been widely panned for not being competitive enough.

The reigning champion Cavaliers dropped just a single game on their way through the eastern conference playoffs prior to the NBA Finals.

Despite the criticism, the Finals so far have earned the highest TV ratings since 1998, when Jordan's Bulls won their sixth NBA championship of the decade by defeating the Utah Jazz in six games.

"They were great in their time, we're great in our time and respect that," Green said. (Editing by Nick Mulvenney)