Courtside

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr didn’t sound worried at all. Asked about starting guard Klay Thompson’s horrible shooting woes, he told the assembled media over the weekend that the answer lies in better ball movement. And he was speaking in terms of when, not if. No doubt, it helps that he has a historically loaded roster at his disposal; when Most Valuable Player awardees Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are on the floor, open shots will be the rule and not the exception.
Kerr was, needless to say, likewise speaking from his experience, both as a former player with a similarly smooth stroke from the perimeter and as a mentor privy to Thompson’s singular work ethic. So what if the latter had hit just five of 36 attempts from three-point land through the first seven games of the season? The poor percentage from the small sample size was but an outlier in a sterling body of work that helped contribute to four Finals appearances and three titles over the last four years.
True enough, Thompson broke out of his slump yesterday. And, as if to prove Kerr’s point, he did so in unparalleled fashion, putting up an eye-popping 52 points through just 27 minutes of play. He had the scientifically dubious but anecdotally apt hot hand from the get-go, and when he sank his 14th three-pointer with 4:53 left in the third quarter, he saw fit to celebrate with gusto. Needless to say, the Warriors — and especially Curry, whose record he had just smashed — celebrated with him.
Given Thompson’s crucial but relatively released-of-pressure role with the Warriors, it’s no wonder that he has expressed a preference to stay in the fold. Free agency is coming at the end of the season, but continued individual and collective successes have dampened whatever wanderlust he may have harbored at one time or another. He will have more downs, for sure, but for as long as the ups keep coming, he knows he’s exactly where he needs to be.
 
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994.