The Golden State Warriors got plenty of stellar individual performances in a 141-114 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, their first game since Stephen Curry went back to the shelf with a left leg injury.
Jordan Poole dropped 21 points and a career-high 12 assists in a performance both coaches and teammates called among the best of his career. Draymond Green's fingerprints were all over both sides of the ball, whether charging ahead in the open floor for coast-to-coast finishes thwarting attempts at the rim as a back-line help defender.
Andrew Wiggins scored an efficient 18 points and locked down Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in isolation on several possessions, while JaMychal Green continued his encouraging recent play with 12 points, three boards and two triples in just 11 minutes off the bench.
Klay Thompson's flame-throwing, Draymond Green's coast-to-coast aggression and Andrew Wiggins' defense on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander highlight reactions from the Warriors' blowout win over the Thunder.
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— Warriors Nation (@WarriorNationCP) February 7, 2023
Klay Thompson's shot-making brilliance transcended a true team effort for the Warriors, though, and not just because he racked up 42 points and 12 three-pointers on just 22 shots—one of the league's most efficient scoring outbursts in years. Thompson's early hot hand gave his teammates a much-needed jolt of energy after Golden State started slow, the Chase Center crowd riding the wave of his vintage shooting night from there.
“We feed off Klay all the time, but in particular on a night like tonight where we're down early and giving up a lot of points. I thought OKC really came out and hit us in the mouth right away,” Steve Kerr said after the game. “Klay just kept us in it early with hit shot-making and allowed us to kind of find our groove.”
Thompson scored 27 points in the first half alone, giving Golden State its first lead with one three late in the second quarter and sending the home team into intermission up 60-53 with another just before the buzzer.
The brief break hardly cooled him off, either.
Klay Thompson opened the third quarter with threes on the Warriors' first possessions, igniting a game-changing 19-7 run that dug Oklahoma City a hole from which it was too deep to climb.
“It's just fun. That's when the crowd really gets into it. You can just feel the game changing as he starts making those shots,” Kerr said of Thompson getting hot from three at home. “The crowd starts to anticipate every possession. The game starts to open up because they have to pay more and more attention to him. When he gets in a zone like that, it's something special to watch.”
Dub Nation can see if Thompson finds that special zone again on Wednesday night, when Golden State heads north for a matchup with Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers.
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