With 54 points, Klay Thompson had just set a lifetime best with a three-pointer from the corner. Even more puzzling were the numbers displayed on the Oracle Arena Jumbotron: 4 minutes and 27 seconds remained in the third quarter.
Thompson rested for the last 13+ minutes as the Warriors were already well on their way to a 142-106 thumping of Indiana. After Rick Barry scored 64 points against Portland 43 years ago, he became the first player from the Golden State to reach that milestone with 60 points in the game.
Thompson remarked, “I thought every shot I took was a good shot.”
Even Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, colleagues of the Warriors with five NBA scoring titles between them, have not scored as many points as Thompson did on Monday. Wilt Chamberlain and Joe Fulks are the only two players in team history to score sixty points in a game, aside from Barry.
Since Kobe Bryant of the Lakers scored 42 points against the Wizards on March 28, 2003, Thompson’s 40 points in the first half were the highest point total by any player before the half. Thompson became the first player to score 60 points in less than 30 minutes since the shot clock was implemented in 1954, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Curry stated, “I bet that’s a feat that will probably never be surpassed in the history of basketball.” “That’s incredible.”
With plenty of freedom to work with from his All-Star supporting group, Thompson shot 21 for 33 from the field (8 for 14 from beyond the arc). A player whose reputation has been forged on swishing jump shots was able to concentrate on his trademark move as he finished 29 minutes with two rebounds, one assist, zero turnovers, and a plus-37 rating.
His teammates are used to witnessing exceptional shooting efforts by now. However, they behaved like children on Christmas Day on the bench during the first half of Monday’s game, when Thompson scored 39 points, surpassing his previous career high. After Thompson turned to shoot a disputed three-pointer from the corner midway through the second quarter, Curry walked down the sideline and jogged halfway up the tunnel to the locker room.
Curry remarked, “I ran out of real estate to try to keep my celebration going.”
Thompson, who is arguably the greatest non-Curryan three-point shooter of all time, doesn’t really care about notoriety, doesn’t control the ball very much, and makes shots while the play is flowing. This is coming from a player who scored 11 three-pointers in Game 6 of the playoffs against Oklahoma City the previous season and 37 points in a quarter.
Thompson was reported in a Yahoo Sports story as stating, “I’m not sacrificing (expletive), because my game isn’t changing,” shortly after Durant joined with Golden State in July. His motives were called into doubt by many on social media as a result of those nine statements.
The argument Thompson was attempting to make is evident 21 games into the Durant era. On Monday, Thompson’s teammates saw he was clicking when they saw him in transition, off screens, or just standing aimlessly in the corner, or anywhere he was open. In the second quarter, Thompson made four three-pointers, causing the crowd to stand each time he made contact with the ball behind the arc.
Head coach Steve Kerr stated, “I think all of our guys are aware of the fact that, when a guy has it going, get him the ball and him his career-high.” “It’s entertaining,”
Golden State is so explosive that occasionally “SportsCenter”-caliber highlights go buried. That was the case in the third quarter when Curry tipped a ball behind his head to find Durant for an alley-oop dunk, but Thompson’s scoring overshadowed the play.
Thompson’s father had two tickets to a Raptors-Lakers game at Staples Center when he was fifteen years old. Thompson chose not to go, partly due to Vince Carter’s departure from Toronto.
He missed Bryant’s 81 points in 42 minutes that night, a choice he has long regretted. With 60 points in 29 minutes on Monday, Thompson was on track to finish with 87 in 42.