After the Golden State Warriors had lost their first eight games of the 2022–23 NBA Regular Season, they triumphed on the road thanks to an outstanding effort by Klay Thompson.

It’s merely a starting point for me. After defeating the Houston Rockets, he said, “I really wanted a game like this, so it felt amazing for me to just let that thing fly and play with a free mind. The big game felt fantastic, that’s all.

During the last minutes of the close game, Thompson, 32, scored a season-high 41 points off of 10/13 triples and three long-range baskets. His 15th career 40-point performance was a highlight of the NBA Sundays scoring chart for the most recent episode. “That felt great, regardless of the game being in mid-November,” he said.

In the last game of the 2021–22 regular season, the Warriors defeated the New Orleans Pelicans with a 40–point performance, securing the third seed in the Western Conference. His team went on to capture the franchise’s sixth title. Along with being the team’s last away victory of the regular season, Steve Kerr’s squad had lost eight straight games all the way to Houston.

The four-time NBA champion is averaging 17.3 points per game this season and is hitting 37.7% of his three-pointers. However, in his past two games—wins against the Rockets and New York Knicks—he has increased to 30.5 points per game and 60.9% outside the arc. But based on the load management strategy the Warriors have used this year, he is anticipated to miss the last games of the back-to-back, which conclude on Monday night in New Orleans.

The reigning NBA champions, up to 8-9, are two wins out of the Western Conference Playoff zone and half a victory behind the Play-In zone.