Complete coverage of the Game 2 win, including commentary from Ann Killion and Scott Ostler.
As the clock ran down on the Warriors’ 122-103 win over the Cavaliers on Sunday night, the TV cameras caught Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant in animated conversation, Draymond Green talking happily and enthusiastically to someone, and Klay Thompson, sitting on the bench, alone, wearing a vacant expression.
Fill in the thought balloon: ⏩ Did I remember to unplug the waffle iron?
⏩ I don’t think there’s much hope now for disarmament talks with North Korea.
⏩ I think I’ll take up the ukulele.
Tough man to read, Thompson.
Much has been made of the roller-coaster emotions and focus of the Warriors throughout the playoffs. Even within the team. Head coach Steve Kerr talks of nights when his team plays with “force,” and nights when nobody’s home. One game, Kevin Durant is a head case. The next, he’s dialed in. Sometimes the team is engaged, sometimes it’s out on spring break.
Klay? Same old, same old. Shows up every night, firing away and quietly fired up. The level of his intensity seems impossible to read. Is he asleep? No, he just drilled a three.
Also impossible to read: His level of pain. If there’s a game, he’s playing. There are iron men. Thompson is made of titanium.
On Saturday, I could have killed Thompson in a 50-yard dash. He limped to and from his news conference, clearly hurting from the high ankle sprain sustained in Game 1 on Thursday when the Cavaliers’ J.R. Smith slipped and barrel-rolled into Thompson’s leg. Would he play Sunday?
“He’s playing,” someone very close to Thompson said 90 minutes before Game 2. “He’s about 70 percent. He’ll be a decoy.”
If that was a decoy, the real ducks must be really lively. Thompson scored on a driving layup 2½ minutes into the game, then drilled a three, then stole a pass and fed Stephen Curry, who fed Draymond Green for a dramatic dunk.
Playing hurt, we assume, Thompson scored 20 points and was 3-for-8 on threes, including a fast-break pull-up to give the Warriors a 72-61 lead five minutes into the third quarter. He had snagged the defensive rebound to start the break.
It was the kind of cold-blooded shot Thompson takes whether he’s 0-for-9 in a game or 9-for-9. The jump on that shot showed that whatever is wrong with his ankle isn’t keeping him from lifting off.
The injured ankle caused Thompson
“I thought there was no chance he was playing tonight. I mean, I saw him walking in yesterday and saw his ankle and I was like, ‘Yeah, there’s no chance he’s playing.’ ” Draymond Green, Warriors forward, on teammate Klay Thompson’s sprained ankle
to discover kinesiology.
The ankle “is something that you just ... that you use a lot,” Thompson said. “I didn’t realize how much you use your ankle until you hurt it.”
“You should have asked me,” Curry interjected.
Then Draymond Green said, “I thought there was no chance he was playing tonight. I mean, I saw him walking in yesterday and saw his ankle and I was like, ‘Yeah, there’s no chance he’s playing.’ Sure enough, I’m like, ‘Man, you good?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine, I’m playing, I’ll be all right.’ And I was like, ‘No, he ain’t playing . ... There’s no chance.’ ”
Green said he texted Thompson on Sunday morning, Thompson texted back that he was playing, and Green thought, “Of course Klay’s lying.”
Green said Thompson gimped up after his first pregame layup and went back to the trainer’s room (not for a pain shot, Thompson said).
But at tip-off, there he was.
The miracle recovery? Who knows? Maybe he got some healing ankle licks from Rocco.
Sunday was Thompson’s 100th playoff game, and he hit his 300th playoff three pointer. Not as dramatic as Curry’s three-point stats, but vital to the Warriors’ success.
On several of Curry’s threes, he got open on heavy ball-movement plays, give-and-go-and-get-back stuff. Those plays don’t happen unless the floor is spread, unless Thompson is sticking and moving.
Even when he’s not getting many shots, even when he’s cold, Thompson is someone the other team has to watch constantly. In Game 1, he scored 24 points and was 5-for-10 on threes.
It’s possible that if Thompson had missed the game, the Warriors could have replaced his 20 points, but they could not have replaced what he does for the offense, and for the opposing defense, and for the Warriors’ defense.
With two days to rest before Game 3 in Cleveland on Wednesday, Thompson seems a solid bet to be ready for more action.
MVD: Most Valuable Decoy.