It has been over five months now since the Golden State Warriors lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the playoffs, but the defeat continues to sting Klay Thompson.
“Stings bad,” Thompson said. “Bad. Because you want to win against a team that is a division rival, you want to beat your hometown, you want to beat your friends who are fans of the team, you want to beat LeBron (James) obviously. We have such a deep history with him. Kudos to him. He’s still out here playing at the highest level he possibly can. So, yeah, it stings.”
Losing to anyone would have stung, but it certainly would have hurt more to lose to LeBron James and the Lakers. The Warriors had beaten James’ teams in three of their four NBA Finals meetings, but he managed to exact some revenge by helping dump them out in six games in the Conference Semifinals.
It was also a little bit personal for a Southern California native like Klay, who was keen to beat the team he rooted for when growing up. Thompson had said it was a dream come true to face the Lakers, but it turned into a nightmare for him.
Klay Thompson Struggled Against The Lakers
Unfortunately for Klay, he’d be a big reason why the Warriors lost to the Lakers. The five-time All-Star averaged just 16.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in the series while shooting a miserable 34.3% from the field.
He started the series fairly well, with a combined 55 points in the first two games, but mustered just 42 in the next four. The lowlight was certainly Game 6. where he had 8 points to go with 5 rebounds while shooting 3-19 from the field and 2-12 from three. The 33-year-old revealed that he was fried by the end of the series.
“I learned that I was fried. I was tired,” Thompson said. “All my shots in that Game 6 were short. They were all on line. They were just short. I don’t know if that’s mental fatigue or physical fatigue. But it happens. Then on top of that, I learned as I get older, I’ll have to rely on my teammates and my smarts to be as efficient scoring the ball as I possibly can be.”
He spent the offseason wondering how he could have prepared better. Klay is obviously getting up there in age now, and it is not a good sign that he was so fatigued by the end of the series. Maybe a different kind of preparation would help matters, but if this becomes a theme moving forward, then they can’t count on him deep into the playoffs.
Steve Kerr Said The Warriors Got Exposed Against The Lakers
The exit at the hands of the Lakers marked the first time that head coach Steve Kerr had lost a series to a team in the Western Conference. He didn’t mince his words when talking about it earlier this month, with Kerr saying the Lakers exposed the Warriors in the playoffs.
“The Lakers exposed us,” Kerr said. “We were not a very well-rounded team last year. So, thinking about that series, watching it. They bottled us up defensively and we didn’t have a counter. So, we’ve got to make sure we have counters this year.”
That was quite blunt on Kerr’s part, and it’s clear that it’s not just the players who need to step up for Golden State. It will be interesting to see how differently they tackle some of the problems the Lakers gave them should these teams meet again in the playoffs.
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