Klay Thompson, who set an NBA record earlier this season with 37 points in a quarter, got molten hot again Monday night when he went off for 26 against the Grizzlies. Thompson totaled 42 points in 30 minutes. He shot 15-21 from the field and 8-10 from behind the arc.
"It felt different," Thompson said. "I don't think I'll ever get 37 points in a quarter again."
Klay went off in this game in a different number of ways. Klay's obviously known for his knock-down jump shot, and so he makes use of this by coming off screens.
Here, the Warriors run a typical HORNS play, with two posts on the elbows. In this set, with the off-side post screening, this play could actually go to Curry's side or Klay's. This time Klay gets the screen, and knocks down the simple mid-range jump shot.
In this set of HORNS, it's nearly the same play but the defender bites hard on the jump shot, and gets beat on a back-cut by Klay.
In this last play, there wasn't much to it. Klay got a screen from Draymond that opened up enough room to just launch it. At this point, Klay was so on fire that nearly anything he threw up would likely go in. This just happened to ignite the great Warriors crowd and got them on their feet.
"We did a lot of great things," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "We did a lot of stupid things."
Other leading scorers for the Warriors included Stephen Curry with 15 points, and Festus Ezeli with 9. The Warriors, while Klay was on fire, actually played some sloppy basketball. "It was like this frenzy to get the ball to Klay and we end up turning it over three or four times, and instead of being up 30 at the half we were up 22," Kerr said. "And as we saw in the fourth quarter, 22 in the NBA is not insurmountable."
The Warriors are at least playing loose heading into playoffs. It's hard to fathom a situation where the Warriors don't lock in when the first round comes, they just seem like they are bored and antsy waiting for the playoffs.