The last time the Golden State Warriors found themselves down 3-2 in a series, Klay Thompson went off. Thompson stole the show and saved Golden State’s season, changing the landscape of the NBA as we know it.
The Klay Thompson Game and How It Changed the NBA
It was Game 6 of the 2016 Western Conference Finals. In what is now known as “The Klay Game,” Thompson scored 41 points, leading the Warriors to a win. The Warriors would complete the comeback in Game 7, knocking off Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder en route to their second straight NBA Finals appearance.
With Stephen Curry struggling to score, the Warriors were on the brink of elimination, trailing by eight points heading into the fourth quarter. But Thompson scored 25 points in the second half, including 19 in the fourth quarter. He outscored Oklahoma City by himself, 19-18, in the fourth, as the Warriors outscored OKC by 15 points. Thompson knocked down an incredible 11 out of 18 threes in the win.
What if…
But what if Thompson doesn’t explode, what happens if the Thunder complete the series win and advance to the NBA Finals? The NBA would look a whole lot different if that was the case.
The Thunder winning would’ve set up Round 2 of Durant/Russell Westbrook vs. LeBron James in the Finals. The Thunder would’ve gone into the series riding the high of knocking out the 73-win Warriors. And they may have even beaten James and company.
A Thunder NBA title would’ve led the team’s roster to stay intact. Durant wouldn’t have left in free agency, and the Thunder likely wouldn’t have traded Serge Ibaka in the off-season.
A Thunder championship would’ve meant a second straight Finals loss for the Cleveland Cavaliers. That would’ve led to a number of questions. Does James stay in Cleveland? (He was an unrestricted free agent that summer.) If James stays, do the Cavs bring back Kevin Love, who never really settled into his role as the third option? Does Kyrie Irving voice his issues about James to management and force his way out of town?
Cleveland would’ve had a lot of work to do. There’s no telling what kind of team the Cavs would’ve fielded to start the 2016-17 season.
Effects on Golden State
This brings us to those Warriors. After winning 73 games and falling short of the NBA Finals, what do they do? This time there’s no Kevin Durant to come and save the day. The only big free agent that off-season would’ve been…LeBron James. Does James lose to the Thunder in the Finals and go join the 73-win Warriors? (Probably not, but just imagine that for a few minutes and try not to let your brain melt.) Or does James join the team he just beat in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Toronto Raptors?
With an otherwise weak free agent crop, the Warriors could’ve brought back their core and given it another shot in 2017, or they could’ve made a trade. (Ironically, Thompson would probably be the player to leave town.)
Cleveland winning the series doesn’t really change much for the Warriors or the Thunder. The Thunder would still likely bring everyone back, seeing as they had just defeated a 73-win team and would’ve given the Cavs a run for their money. And we already know what happens in the off-season for Cleveland in that case because it happened in real life – spoiler alert: James stays.
Do we even see this Houston Rockets team come to form? Or would Western Conference teams be so deterred by the Warriors’ and Thunder’s dominance that they don’t even see the need to make a push?
A missed opportunity
This all comes back to Klay Thompson and his 41 points. We could’ve been looking at the start of a great Western Conference rivalry. Curry and Westbrook could be having dance offs with the ball, Durant and Thompson could be seeing who can get hotter from three, and Ibaka and Draymond Green could be trading blows year after year.
Yup, the last time the Warriors went down 3-2 in a series, it changed the landscape of the NBA. What will happen this time around?
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