The Thunder, who blew a number of fourth-quarter leads during the regular season, fell apart in the final minutes after Golden State had gone ahead.
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Thompson admitted he wasn’t aware of the significance of his performance as the game was going on, per MacMahon: “I didn’t even know I had 11 threes. We know that. We’ve got our hands full with them”. “I thought we got a little stagnant coming down the stretch”.
Thompson continued his impressive shooting streak into the second half, as, slowly but surely, it seemed as though the Thunder were beginning to unravel, as the stranglehold they once held on the series was suddenly evaporating and seemed to be no more.
And when up against championship heart, it was Oklahoma City that wilted.
In games three and four, the Thunder built a double-digit lead in the second quarter on their way to blowout wins.
Last season, the Golden State Warriors finished the Houston Rockets in five games, advancing them to the finals.
The Golden State Warriors are 47-3 straight up and 28-22 against the spread in 50 games at home this season.
Klay Thompson had a lot to do with that.
Averaging 4.9 points more and 3.3 percent better from the field, the Warriors have so far excelled at home this postseason. Another Thompson 3-pointer at the 2:09 mark cut the Thunder lead to 44-40.
“I’ve learned that our players are tough, they’re mentally tough”, coach Steve Kerr said Sunday. “I mean, the shooting was some of the most incredible shooting you’ll ever see”.
There will be stories told for as long as there are Warriors fans who can speak or shriek one more time or just say Klay Thompson’s name. I was just trying to be aggressive.
The MVP only scored three times in the fourth, but those shots were arguably the biggest of the game. Now the series becomes a best of one to be played in Golden State, and that’s certainly not a good thing for the Thunder.
“We felt good. We were only down five and”, Thompson said. They absolutely needed to go to the wall with the 3-ball to pull this one out, and Thompson and Curry delivered with a historic effort, even for them.
The Warriors lost the Game 6 rebounding battle 49-43 and Oklahoma City also did major damage on the offensive boards with 16.
Fast forward a few days and two games, Oklahoma City remains one game away, only now there is no two-game cushion.
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“That really wasn’t – hasn’t been us in the last month and a half”, Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “We’re upset we lost, but we let that go and we’ve got to get ready for Game 7”. “We’re excited about that”. “It’s just a matter of us going out there and playing with extreme effort and leaving it all out there and feeling confident that we can go in there and get this done. We still have another game”.
