BOSTON – The ticking sound heard around New England on Tuesday is ringing loudest in the ears of the Warriors.
It’s a timer, a countdown, not on Golden State’s season but on Klay Thompson. And the volume increases with each miserable shooting postseason performance. He has endured two in a row, and they are in the international spotlight because they happen to be the first two games of the NBA Finals against the Celtics.
The tick-tick-ticking is going to follow Klay until he silences it with one of his patented scoring explosions.
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No Warriors teammate knows Klay’s tendencies better than Stephen Curry. After a few poor shooting nights, he can hear the ticking, which is why he strongly believes, with good reason, an outburst is coming -- even against the league’s No. 1 defense.
“History with him has shown there's no predictor,” Curry said Tuesday afternoon after the team worked out at TD Garden. “He can just take it to another level. Regular season, playoffs, he's always just found a way to get himself going – especially in the playoffs. Just to make an impact that's loud.
“Usually, it's really loud.”
The most recent example came in the Western Conference finals against the Mavericks. After shooting 7-of-24 from beyond the arc and never reaching the 20-point mark in the first four games, Klay shot 8-of-16 from deep in a 32-point effort to closeout Dallas in Game 5.
Golden State Warriors
After shooting 12-of-41 from deep through five games against the Grizzlies in the conference semifinals, Klay went 8-of-14 while dropping 30 to oust Memphis in Game 6.
This is Klay’s history, generally a calm before the storm. And it’s why even as fans and talking heads zero in on his 4-of-15 shooting from distance (and 10-of-33 overall), the Warriors show no sign of worry.
“I'm not particularly concerned about it because this isn't the first time it's happened,” coach Steve Kerr said. “Klay has a way of responding to mini-slumps or whatever you want to call them.”
The Warriors anticipate what’s coming, but they’d like to see it sooner than Game 5.
They’ll probably need it before Game 5.
Klay is doing his part to speed the process. He’s watching video of himself, including his most memorable postseason scoring explosion: Game 6 of the 2016 Western Conference finals against the Thunder in Oklahoma City.
“When you go through a shooting slump,” he said, “the video guys will pull up a great game of when everything seemed in unison, your body was working so well, that ball was just flowing off your fingertips.
“Gosh, probably just YouTube ‘Game 6 Klay’ because there were some very high-pressurized situations I was in. I ended up shooting the ball well. When you can do it when your back is against the wall, you can do it at any given moment.”
The Warriors were down three-games-to-two in the series against the Thunder, and though Thompson averaged 22.2 points through five games, he was only 13-of-43 from deep. He was 11-of-18 beyond the arc in Game 6. Scored 41 points in a 108-101 victory.
“Game 6 Klay” was born on May 28, 2016.
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The video of the past two games has been examined by Klay, and he realizes the fixes he has to make. The sooner, the better.
“When I watched the film, I probably seemed a little rushed,” Thompson said. “I wasn't underneath my shot. This is nothing I'm immune to. I've been through shooting slumps before. The best part is, it's how you respond.
“Come Game 3, I'll probably not do much differently rather than just play with great pace and hunt great shots. When I tend to do that, I tend to have a big night.”
It’s going to come, whether it’s Game 3 or Game 4 or later. And when it does, the Warriors and those who know Klay’s history can say they heard it coming.