Thompson believes in team
WARRIORS: Swingman not backing down from comments after falling behind 2-1
CLEVELAND — A day after proclaiming that the trailing Golden State Warriors would still prevail at the NBA Finals, Klay Thompson wasn’t backing away from his comments.
Athletes often say things they would like to take back in the heat of the moment, in the tense minutes following a bitter defeat.
The Warriors all-star swingman had been defiant after Golden State’s 96-91 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, saying the team would get its offence together and eventually win the championship, despite trailing 2-1.
To his credit, on Wednesday, Thompson remained confident — and fiery.
“We’ve been in this position before and we’ll figure it out,” Thompson said.
“Memphis obviously was a different team, but we were in the same position (trailing 2-1 earlier in the playoffs). We weren’t playing well at all for three games, I mean we played well for one game and I feel like it’s the same kind of feeling right now. Just got to go out there tomorrow and just get back to what we were doing,” Thompson said.
Thompson was adamant about what needs to change so that his words won’t ring hollow.
“We’ve got to impose our will, which we haven’t really done the first two games. They imposed their will yesterday, quite frankly, it was embarrassing.
“I mean, I’m proud of the way we fought back, but we’ve just got to come out and play mean, play mad, because we haven’t shown up and played the Warriors brand we have all year.” Teammate David Lee agreed. “I have faith that we’re going to come out and play the right way (on Thursday) and then this series is right back to square one,” Lee said, pointing to Golden State’s 36-24 edge and 52 per cent shooting in the fourth quarter.
“The most promising thing is that you finally saw us playing the type of ball we’re capable of playing,” Lee said.
“It was the player movement, the ballmovementandtheenergy.And if we play like that, I think we’re the better team in this series.”
Though Thompson wants to see more fight and aggressiveness from himself and his teammates, he also wants to see far smarter play.
Better decisions, more cerebral thinking.
“We really had them spread out (in the fourth quarter), it frustrated their rim protection,” he said.
“You have to be patient on the offensive end. You can’t take shots with 20 seconds left, contested. That’s just playing into their hands. We’ve got to make them play from behind, see what they’re about when they play from behind and see if that slow pace is still going to work if we get out to a 10-12-point lead.” Thompson is right. The Warriors have been the team fighting back for nearly the entire series.
They pulled off an overtime win in the opener, but couldn’t prevail in the next two games.
Golden State has not played remotely close to its best, yet remains very much in the series.
“We’re one win away from being right back where we need to be,” said head coach Steve Kerr.
“We’ve been in this situation as we talked about with Memphis. So it’s a day to regroup and see what we can do better and get our heads up and be ready for (Game 4).”
“We’ve got to impose our will, which we haven’t really done the first two games. They imposed their will yesterday, quite frankly, it was embarrassing. ”
— Klay Thompson