Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green played down his heated exchange with team-mate Kevin Durant, claiming the argument was "a tactic".

Green and Durant exchanged words during Saturday's 109-106 overtime loss to the Sacramento Kings, with expletives used during a timeout.

Durant appeared enraged following the argument but Green insisted it was all part of his plan.

"It was actually a tactic," Green told reporters on Tuesday. "But that's for us to know and for everyone else to figure out.

"If you can't [have a dispute], you're probably on a losing team. But everybody that makes a big deal out of it probably are losers. So that's how I view it. Anyone who knows anything about winning knows that's what happens. It just is what it is."

Green added: "If you've got to hide something from one of your team-mates, you can't say something to somebody, then you're in a bad situation. And me personally, I don't want to be in that situation.

"If you're on a team where you can't talk, where there's moments and you need to yell at each other, maybe that yelling is to get each other going."

Two-time reigning MVP Stephen Curry also had his say, dismissing the incident between his star team-mates.

"We know it's really nothing. It's constructive to try to understand how we're going to get better," Curry said. "It comes from a place of respect between everybody on this team, including those two guys. So, nobody takes anything personal, nobody goes home and cries about it.

"It's about everybody wants to win, and in that moment it might get heated, it might happen in front of cameras, it might happen in the locker room, it might happen at practice, it might be a phone call, offline, whatever. Those kinds of conversations need to happen so that we continue to try to get better and challenge each other to not get complacent."