Guard stays quiet — but game is loud
HOUSTON — During his three seasons as the Warriors’ head coach, Mark Jackson sometimes joked that, though other players are low maintenance, Klay Thompson is no maintenance.
General manager Bob Myers goes further, saying he sometimes wonders if his starting shooting guard is alive. Thompson’s postgame news conferences last only a question or two. Unlike some NBA All-Stars intent on reveling in their celebrity, he prefers to relax at home with his beloved English bulldog, Rocco.
“That’s the beauty of Klay,” head coach Steve Kerr said in October.
Thompson’s laid-back — perhaps borderline comatose — demeanor is part of the reason he is probably the fourth-most-recognizable player on
his team. But as Golden State readies for another NBA title pursuit, those within the organization recognize that he is the team’s most explosive scorer. Perhaps no player in the league is more difficult to defend than Thompson at peak efficiency.
This is the man who put together a 37-point quarter, an 11-three-pointer playoff game and the Warriors’ first 60-point performance in 42 years. Since weathering a week-long slump in the wake of the left knee injury Kevin Durant sustained Feb. 28 at Washington, Thompson has played his best basketball of the season.
He has scored more than 20 points in eight of his past nine games. In Sunday’s win over the Grizzlies, Thompson poured in 21 of his game-high 31 points after halftime. Twelve of those came within the first eight minutes of the third quarter. Thanks largely to Thompson’s torrid shooting, Golden State has followed a 2-5 rut with seven straight wins.
“He has no conscience,” said Stephen Curry, the only player in NBA history other than Thompson to have made at least 200 three-pointers in five consecutive seasons. “It doesn’t matter what’s happened before because that next possession, if he has an open look, he’s going to take it. He has confidence that he can make it. That’s what great shooters do.”
At the root of Thompson’s scoring binges is his fluid, repetitive shooting motion. Kerr, the NBA’s all-time leader in threepoint shooting percentage, said he has not seen anyone with more sound form. Seldom do the fundamentals of Thompson’s shot — balanced frame, minimal follow-through, relaxed shoulders, spread fingers — change from one possession to the next.
One of the league’s most tireless runners, he is a master at working off screens to shed opponents. A defender who is even a half-step slow will have a tough time getting a hand in front of Thompson before he releases the ball. Thompson, who needed the ball in his hands for only 88.4 seconds total to score a career-high 60 points Dec. 5 against Indiana, is on pace to lead the NBA in points off catch-and-shoot opportunities for the third time in four seasons.
On 77.9 percent of his shots, Thompson touches the ball for less than two seconds. Nearly 66 percent of his attempts come without taking a dribble. It throws defenders only more off-kilter that Thompson mixes layups, floaters and mid-range jumpers in with his signature three-pointers.
Midway through the second quarter Sunday, he dribbled through a screen at the top of the arc and laced a bounce pass behind his back to David West, who then found Thompson cutting to the rim for the layup. It was the type of play that helped Thompson settle into a rhythm. In a four-minute, 15-second stretch spanning the end of the second quarter and the start of the third, he hit three threepointers and a 20-foot jumper.
“It just takes a couple” of shots, Thompson said of finding a groove. “It’s about not settling and just a lot of off-ball movement.”
Draymond Green is Golden State’s fiery leader, typically good for a sound bite, and Durant and Curry are the entrepreneurial stars. It is a big reason why Thompson is an ideal fit with the Warriors, on the court and off. He is free to focus on hitting shots and guarding opponents’ best scorers. Then, when the final buzzer sounds, Thompson heads home to hang with Rocco.