Reflecting on Klay Thompson as a Warrior: Game 6 legacy

GAME 6 KLAY WILL NEVER DIE!

As tensions reach a fever pitch in Dub Nation about the potential departure of beloved franchise cornerstone Klay Thompson in free agency, there’s a lot to remember about his greatness as a Golden State Warrior.

Today I want to take the time to go through some of my favorite Killa Klay moments, with commentary from sports outlets surrounding the historic exploits of one of the greatest players in NBA history.

In this article, let’s reflect on Klay becoming the most dangerous Game 6 performer in Warriors history.

May 28th, 2016: Game 6 Klay torments the OKC Thunder

A formidable Thunder team held a 3-2 advantage heading into this tilt in Chesapeake Energy Arena and led for much of the game before a historic explosion from a Splash Brother. Here’s Ethan Sherwood Strauss for ESPN recounting Thompson’s Game 6 scoring binge:

Thompson had been going bonkers over the entirety of the game, progressively so. His 41-point, playoff-record-setting 11 3-pointer performance had Warriors owner Joe Lacob so awed, so indebted, that the venture capitalist quite literally dropped to his knees and bowed before Thompson after the game.

Even if he was feeling it, Thompson’s ambition still was astounding under the circumstances. The comeback started with Thompson, feet askew, casting a 30-foot bomb through the net. The shot went up as Kerr was begging Thompson to move the ball.

”I remember looking at a woman sitting next to me in those really expensive courtside seats next to the coaches,” Kerr recalled. “She was in shock. I just looked at her and said, ‘I don’t know how he does it either.’ “

Does Thompson remember much from his signature playoff game?

”Barely,” he said, while fighting a battle with knots in his shoelaces.

It doesn’t get more clutch than staring down Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and Serge Ibaka in their building...and breaking the all-time postseason record for three-pointers in their face. If the Warriors lose that game and the Thunder go to the Finals, it’s widely speculated Durant never joins the Golden Empire.

Just don’t mention that night to KD!

May 26th, 2018: Game 6 Klay skewers the Rockets

Never forget, there was once a time that people legitimately thought Houston was better than Golden State. You can thank Thompson for guaranteeing that fantasy never came to reality, leading the Warriors charge back from a 3-2 deficit with a monster Game 6 performance in Oakland.

The Athletic’s lead Warriors columnist and friend of GSoM Marcus Thompson II described Thompson’s rapacious onslaught like this:

His 35 points defibrillated the Warriors’ offense when it looked as if all was lost. Over the first 16 minutes, 30 seconds of the second half, Thompson hit seven 3-pointers. The last punctuated a second-half detonation that crumbled Houston in the Warriors’ 115-86 rout, forcing a Game 7 for a trip to the NBA Finals.

It was the latest tale in a legend that keeps growing.

GSoM’s resident genius Eric Apricot broke that game down for our video channel on YouTube (don’t forget to like and subscribe!).

After the game, Klay Thompson told reporters he was “born for it”, something we can’t deny.

May 10th, 2019: Game 6 Klay buries the “If only Chris Paul was healthy” narrative forever

The Rockets claimed for a whole year they would have beat the Warriors in 2018 if CP3’s hamstring didn’t blow out. Yet, when KD went down with his calf injury during the rematch, the Rockets still got smacked. You can thank Game 6 Klay for making sure that happened while his Splash Bro Curry struggled early.

Per Paolo Uggetti’s recap for The Ringer:

In the first half, Curry picked up three fouls, played only 12 minutes, took five shots—and missed them all—and scored zero points for the first time in his playoff career. And yet Houston could do nothing but keep the game tied at halftime. That was, in large part, because Klay Thompson was the fire to Curry’s ice.

There’s something about Thompson and Game 6s. In the first half on Friday, Thompson scored 21 points, made five 3s, and drilled eight of his 15 field goals. In the regular season, there were 23 times when Thompson took 15 shots or fewer in the entire game. Usually when Thompson catches fire, the Warriors look like an unstoppable force, but in this context, he was more of a lifesaver.

June 14th, 2019: Game 6 Klay’s body gives out in Oracle Arena’s last game

Ugh. Sigh. Hard not to draw a parallel to the end of Klay’s tenure as a Warrior to this game where he was balling out of control in the NBA Finals trying to save the Dubs in a do-or-die war against a formidable Toronto Raptors club.

He was hooping at unreal levels before tearing his ACL on a dunk attempt that effectively sealed the defeat for the Dubs in an emotionally gutwrenching contest. It also knocked him out of the NBA for two seasons and shifted his career path in ways we’ll never truly understand.

Per USA Today:

“Well, there’s a lot of emotions that day. We came real close to having another opportunity to three-peat, which hasn’t been done since Shaq (O’Neal) and Kobe (Bryant),” Thompson began.

“When I hurt my knee, it was kind of unchartered territory for me because I had been able to be consistently present in the lineup my whole career. So I had to kind of realign my whole train of thought with the months coming up. I knew I had a lot of training ahead, and it was actually hard because I didn’t really get a break. Usually, after such a long season, you get a nice summer break. I had to go straight into rehab, and it was a long cycle after that, a couple years.”

May 13th, 2022: Game 6 Klay kills the Memphis Grizzlies dynasty before it ever gets started

I know it’s hard to believe but there was a time when the Grizzlies were supposed to be NEXT; a young gutsy team led by Ja Morant that talked a lotta trash and had their eyes set on burying the Warriors forever.

A contentious Western Conference Finals settled the score between the reigning dynasty and the up-and-comers, as the Dubs prevailed in six games of an emotional series on the way to the fourth title of the Splash Bros era.

A big part of that was the way that Klay went berserk to seal the final game.

Per ESPN’s recap of this huge performance:

This kind of playoff triumph is three years in the making for Klay Thompson, who endured countless hours of rehab and heartache to reach this point again.

“Honestly, especially the perspective I’ve gained from the injuries I’ve had, to now be able to compete at highest level and be one of the final four teams, it’s a feeling that’s hard to describe honestly,” Thompson said. “It’s truly amazing and it just inspires me to keep going because I think we still have great basketball ahead of me.”

Thompson knocked down eight 3-pointers on the way to 30 points, Stephen Curry scored 29 with six 3s, and the Warriors eliminated the Memphis Grizzlies with a 110-96 win in Game 6 on Friday night.