For The Warriors, Klay Thompson Is Their Ace In The Hole And He Proved That Again In Game 4

When Hall of Fame voters and talking heads evaluate Klay Thompson’s career, among a litany of great individual performances they will look at his 2016 playoff run as his zenith. 

As the No. 2 man on the 73-win Warriors team, Thompson made 286 threes in the regular season, which was at the time the second-most all-time, and in the playoffs, he tied the record for most triples in a single postseason with 98. 

Missing Stephen Curry for a major part of the first two rounds, and working with a lesser version of the MVP for the time he was playing, Thompson averaged 24.3 points on 19 shots per game and 42% from three, highlighted by his iconic 41-point, 11-three game six in Oklahoma City. 

Despite losing in seven games in the Finals to LeBron and the Cavs, Thompson was his best during that 21-game run. 

But outside of that postseason, his playoff career has been curious. 

Klay has a career average of 19 points per game (17.4 on 15 shots in the 82 games outside of 2016), four rebounds and 2.2 assists on 44% shooting, never posting above 19.6 ppg in a single postseason, but he is poised to pass Reggie Miller and Manu Ginobili to jump into fourth all-time in career playoff three-pointers. 

Because of his immense value as a primary defender and as a threat on offense, even without a huge scoring output he always impacts the game. 

But once a series, three to five times a postseason, Thompson erupts with a performance like game four against the Clippers. 

He opened the game making his first seven shots, scored 27 in the first half and ended the contest with a game-high 32 points on 12-20 shooting and 6-9 on threes. 

After posting lines of 12, 17 and 12 points and making four threes in the first three games, his showing was not only needed but expected, considering his history.

Think about this: in his 20 career playoff series, Thompson has averaged 28.95 points in his highest scoring games in each of those series.

In the other 82 games, he has put up 16.5 points per game, which includes his nine games of 25-or-more in 2016. 

Thompson is the ultimate break-in-case-of-emergency superstar, the most dangerous third option of all-time. He is Hulk; an indispensable piece who becomes a one-man wrecking crew when he turns it on.

His single-game outbursts are so infamous, “Klay game” is a part the public lexicon.

Even when he is an auxiliary player for most of a series, his potential to breakout is prescient to the point of expectation. 

If the Warriors’ run was strewn with unsavory playoff exits, Thompson’s scoring inconsistencies would be concerning, much like the performances in recent years of James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, John Wall, Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. 

But because of their unprecedented success and the makeup of the team, the role he plays is vital and the perfect changeup to Curry and Durant’s all-time playoff careers. 

He is the Warriors’ 3-and-D stalwart who can take over the game in an instant. 

And it always comes when they need him to. 

Of those 20 games, he was without Steph in four of them and even in the games that he played Curry averaged 24.625 points, several points under his career playoff average.

Much like how his defending the main perimeter threat game after game allows Steph and Durant to be able to exert more energy on the offensive end, Thompson’s single-game heroics take the pressure off of them to be extra-ordinary every game, to the point where Curry can score 12 on 3-14 shooting and not worry about it spelling doom for the Warriors.

Since his first postseason, Klay has been churning out classics. In game two against the Spurs in 2013, Thompson scored 34 on 13-26 with 14 rebounds to tie the series at 1-1 and break a 30-game losing streak in San Antonio. The game before, the Warriors blew a 104-88 lead in the final four minutes. 

In the 2015 Finals, he put up 34 on 28 shots in game two, carrying the Warriors who lost 95-93 in OT to a 39-point triple-double by LeBron, leading to his infamous spike and scream after the game. 

In the 2016 Finals, he scored 37 in a game-five loss, doing all he could to save a team who lost Draymond Green to a suspension and Bogut to a leg injury. 

In the 2017 Finals, in the game three remembered as Kevin Durant’s coup de grâce, Thompson scored 30 on 11-18 shooting while reenacting the coyote and the roadrunner trying to stop Kyrie Irving, helping to a 118-113 win. 

In the 2018 Western Conference Finals, down 3-2, Thompson dropped 35 and four steals in game six against the Rockets, outshooting James Harden and setting up their game-seven triumph.

And, of course, he had a run of dominant shooting games in 2016.

Even in a series when he is seemingly an auxiliary player, he is always a threat to become the best player in any game, breaking down any defense and devolving one of the most loaded and spectacular offenses of all-time into “get Klay the fu***n ball.”

In a lot of ways it's a manifestation of who he is; confident, laid back, never too concerned about his numbers or the way he looks, but always game when someone challenges him to do great things. 

Whether that means hitting a 360 dunk in China or 11 threes in a elimination playoff game, Thompson is there.