Stephen Curry Trends Upward in Thompson's Return

Earlier this week, we talked about the issues Steph Curry has had with his shooting in the 15 games prior to the night Klay Thompson came back. The most obvious outliers were the two games before the matchup against the Cavaliers, where he had historically poor shooting.

The solution we eventually came to was that the Warriors needed Klay Thompson back on the floor. His spacing forces teams to respect the other shooter on the court, which means defenses can’t sell out on him. When he’s not getting doubled or trapped, he can find his rhythm off the dribble easier. Poole’s return from Santa Cruz mid last-season did pretty much the same, and we all saw how February and April went.

While it didn’t fully solve the issue on Klay’s return on Sunday, it certainly helped.

While it gives Steph less room to be a 32 points-per-game scorer like he was last season, the spacing that Klay brought seemed to help him right out the gate. He started off 4-for-4 from three, and although he missed the next 7, he ended with a relatively-efficient 28 points (on 10-for-21 shooting), 5 boards, and 5 assists. He was also a game-high +23.

If you go back to the four made threes in that game by Curry, two of them were off the dribble, but all of them have a distinct thing in common: There was only one defender (usually Darius Garland) in the vicinity when he shot them. One of them was straight off an offense rebound, which is of course a little different, but for the most part, his start to the night was pretty impressive.

He went 4-for-10 on 2s to cap off the rest of his night, making mostly his shots via layups and floaters. His midrange - the few of them he took - still looked solidly off, so the signs of the slump are still in the air about him. It will actively take some time to resolve the slump fully, but we’re starting to see a resolution to Curry’s issues already.

(Photo credit: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)