What we learned as late rally fuels Warriors’ win in Klay’s return originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
BOX SCORE
SAN FRANCISCO – Cheers turned to drama with every breath taken Tuesday night at Chase Center. The score felt secondary in Klay Thompson’s return against the Warriors. The emotions of Steph Curry, Draymond Green and all of Dub Nation said otherwise in a 120-117 win over Thompson and the Dallas Mavericks.
Curry took over by scoring Golden State’s final 12 points in the last three-plus minutes, giving him a game-high 37 points. On top of that, Curry also had six rebounds, nine assists, two blocked shots and made five 3-pointers.
The Warriors were a plus-24 in Curry’s 35 minutes played.
Thompson totaled 22 points, his most since scoring 22 in his Mavs debut, and drained six threes of his own.
Here are three takeaways on the Big Three from Thompson’s first game back against his former team.
He’s back
Once the cheers quieted and the Splash Brothers shared a quick hug ahead of tipoff, it was time to focus solely on the game instead of all the outside festivities. There were many questions surrounding how Thompson’s return would transpire. An early surprise was who opened the game guarding him.
That role didn’t belong to Green, Andrew Wiggins or De’Anthony Melton. It was Curry who had the first crack at Thompson, and the ball immediately was in the former Warrior’s hands. Backing him down, Thompson drew a foul on Curry while attempting a turnaround mid-range jumper and made both free throws for the first two points of the night. His first made basket of the night was a three over Moses Moody with a minute and a half remaining in the first quarter.
As the Mavs came out firing to begin the second quarter and wound up outscoring the Warriors by 10, Thompson hit back-to-back threes and let the crowd know all about it. At halftime, he was up to 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting and made three of his five 3-point attempts. Thompson only scored three more points in the fourth quarter and appeared to be in for a quiet night.
But in the fourth quarter, Thompson scored eight big points to tie a season-high…
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