With Green out, 3-point barrage buries Houston
After Draymond Green had banged his knee in the second half of Thursday’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers and was ruled out for the Golden State Warriors minutes before tipoff Friday night against the Houston Rockets, one might have worried about the Warriors being so short-handed. After all, he joined Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins and several others on the inactive list. But Klay Thompson was active, and ready to shoot, putting the Warriors in very capable hands.
Playing in his second back-to-back set of the season, the 33-year-old poured in a team-high 42 points (on 12-for-19 shooting) with 12 3-pointers in Golden State’s 116-101 win. It was Thompson’s third career game with a dozen or more three-pointers. Curry has two. The rest of the NBA — ever — has three.
To add to the level of difficulty: Thompson didn’t make a single two-point shot.
“I’m so hungry to be great,” Thompson said afterward. “I’ll never be satisfied.
“I don’t like to talk about vintage me or my old self. I just think I’m being myself and I was capable of these things in the past. As long as my wrist still works, my feet work, I’ll forever be able to shoot the rock. So for me its about hunting great shots and tonight I was able to do that.”
It was also Thompson’s ninth career game in double digits for made threes, with only Curry (22) having more in NBA history. And No. 11’s sizzling shooting proved to be contagious, as Golden State made 26 3-pointers, one shy of the franchise record.
“Nah, I didn’t know that,” Warriors guard Ty Jerome said. “If I knew that, I would’ve shot some at the end.”
Head coach Steve Kerr utilized a 10-man rotation against the Rockets, and eight players made at least one 3-pointer. Donte DiVincenzo had the secondmost with five. Rookie Patrick Baldwin Jr. had three. DiVincenzo and Jordan Poole each scored 15 points. Baldwin — in Kerr’s rotation for the second straight game — added 11 off the bench.
“I think we took a few tough 3s in the third quarter,” DiVincenzo said. “And then once we started touching the paint and kicking out, those were the ones that got us rolling. And I think that was the best quick little adjustment we made.”
It initially appeared that Green’s absence would prove to be costly, as Kerr took an early timeout after his team was outscored 12-5 over the opening 3:26. Only the men in that huddle — and perhaps a few nosy fans lurking close enough to the bench — know what Kerr’s message was at that moment. Regardless of what was said, from that point on the Warriors’ switch was flipped.
After playing the Rockets to a 26-point stalemate in the first quarter, Golden State outscored them 4023 in the second quarter, shooting 60 percent from the field, to take a 66-49 lead into halftime. The Warriors made 10 3-pointers in the second quarter alone, punctuated by a Poole heave from Walnut Creek to beat the buzzer.
“I think our defense was feeding our offense, the ability to switch, the ability to make them beat us over the top, not foul,” Thompson said. “And when we do those things the offense will come and we’ll play with great flow on that side of the ball.”
However, these are the 2022-23 Warriors we’re talking about, and no lead has been safe this season.
It was a nine-point game entering the fourth quarter, but Thompson would score 13 points over the first 3:47 — including four more 3-pointers — to push Golden State’s lead back up to 18 with 8:13 left. Sixteen of Thompson’s points came in the final frame.
“It’s just so great to see him now at the point where he can do this,” Kerr said. “This was his second back-to-back, obviously the first one being just before the break and I think that night we limited him to 25 minutes, so he looked great out there. Not only with the shooting, but his rebounding was a factor, his defense and playing 35 minutes. For the second night of a backto-back, that’s big-time.”