SACRAMENTO — As hard as he tried not to think about last season’s play-in dud, when he was wearing a different uniform but playing on the same Golden 1 Center court, Klay Thompson couldn’t keep it from occasionally creeping into his mind.
That was especially true after a scoreless first quarter Wednesday, so it felt like quite a relief when Thompson’s first shot of the second quarter bounced high off the rim and rattled in.
“That kind of lifted the lid off the rim for me,” Thompson said. “So that was nice.”
Thompson provided a vintage performance the rest of the Dallas Mavericks‘ 120-106 win over the Sacramento Kings. He finished with 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including 5-of-7 from 3-point range, a stark contrast to his 0-of-10 misery when the Kings eliminated the Golden State Warriors in the four-time champion’s final game with his original franchise.
“It did feel good to exorcise those demons in here. Man!” Thompson said during his on-court postgame video interview with Scott Van Pelt on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”
Thompson, who averaged 14.0 points per game and shot 39.1% from 3-point range in his first season for the Mavs, didn’t mention anything to his Dallas teammates about his rough experience in the previous year’s 9 vs. 10 play-in round in Sacramento. He didn’t have to.
“We know,” said Mavs power forward Anthony Davis, who finished the game with 27 points, nine rebounds, three blocks and four stitches in his bloodied upper lip. “We all watch basketball, and we know how tough it was for him losing here the last time as a Warrior. The way he played tonight, you can tell it was a lot of emotion for him and wanted to get this win. We wanted to get the win for him, so I’m glad he played well and glad we got the win.”
With the win, the Mavs earned the right to travel to Memphis with a chance to claim the Western Conference’s final playoff berth. The Mavs and Memphis Grizzlies play Friday night for the West’s eighth seed.
“I’m still alive. I’m excited,” Thompson said. “I get to go to Memphis. It was really fun tonight because you could just be fully immersed in the experience, and we’ve had a tumultuous season, to say the least. The injury bug has struck us like I’ve never seen before, but we’re still here playing postseason basketball.”
Thompson has acknowledged on multiple occasions that the final season of his 13-year tenure with the Warriors was mentally taxing for a variety of reasons, including the feeling of not being prioritized by the Golden State front office. Going scoreless in his Warriors finale will always be a bitter memory for Stephen Curry‘s “Splash Brother.”
But Thompson was determined to “play free” in his next crack at the Kings in a play-in game, not allowing last year’s disappointment to haunt him.
“I wasn’t going to define myself off one bad shooting night,” said Thompson, who ranks fifth in NBA history with 2,697 made 3-pointers. “I mean, I’ve had some of the greatest shooting nights in the history of the game. So even someone in my caliber can go 0-for. … I try to not even think about that, but at times you do because you’re human. But you just keep going out there and do what you love.”
