Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry entered the court on Tuesday from separate tunnels, one a few minutes after the other, sending measured glances at each other — like epic heavyweight rivals who kind of wanted to hug each other and talk about old times, too.
Klay went to one side of Chase Center to begin his warmup routine. Curry was already shooting at the other. The two looked like they thought about acknowledging each other, but neither did. There was a game to play. There was concentration to keep.
But after 13 years, four championships, and innumerable incredible moments as teammates and shooting partners, it sure was strange to see the Splash Brothers split apart on a basketball floor.
“It was a little weird at first seeing Steph warm up,” Klay said after the Warriors’ scintillating 120-117 victory over Thompson’s Dallas Mavericks. “But that’s the nature of our business. Change happens. It’s happened to plenty of great players who’ve won championships together.
“But yeah, it was surreal. A night I’ll never forget. Unfortunately, it was a tough loss. Could’ve easily gone our way. But that’s life. … There’s plenty of more battles ahead, which is the fun part.”
This night was about Klay, of course, in his first game back in the Bay Area after he departed as a free agent last July. He was feted from the moment the Mavericks’ team bus arrived — from 400 Warriors employees who donned the give-away Klay Captain’s Hat and saluted him as he walked into the opponents’ locker room, to cheers during the layup lines, to the emotional video right before tipoff. This night was all about the long love affair between Warriors fans and one of the most endearing and toughest players to ever wear the uniform.
But it turned out, perhaps not surprisingly, that this night was about Curry, too. It was about two titans who accomplished so much together paying tribute to all of those emotions by trying to demolish each other in the game. Klay played very well, making 6 of his 12 3-point attempts, doing a Curry-imitation shimmy after one of them, and keying a Dallas surge in the fourth quarter that would’ve won the game … if not for Curry, who scored 10 unanswered points down the stretch and finished with a season-high 37 points.
“It hurts to be on the other side of one of his flurries,” Klay said with a resigned smile. “The guy got hot at the end and made some ridiculous shots. On the other end, it sucks.”
Curry didn’t steal Klay’s moment, of course not. He just made another one of his own and lifted the Warriors to a 9-2 record, tied for first place in the Western Conference. The Mavericks fell to 5-5, but they won the West last season, and they have Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving and now Klay. This was a battle of teams that might see each other in the postseason — and what a series that would be. This game was an epilogue to Klay’s Warriors career, and it was also a sign of more big things.
‘Can’t draw it up any better’
But mostly, this night happened because of what Curry, Klay, and Draymond Green have meant to the Warriors and the Bay Area — and very much because of what they mean to each other.
They all wanted to play great. They all did play great. What better way to honor this era and to signal that more is coming for all three of them?
“Even from July when Klay decided to go to Dallas to us showing up for training camp and him not being here, it was kind of like a slow build to this for everybody,” Curry said. “‘Cause it’s such a different look for us, Klay in a new uniform.
“Granted, we won, so I can say this. But I couldn’t imagine it going any other way, where he played well, the crowd got an amazing show, went down to the wire. Can’t really draw it up any better.”
There was the dual-warmup moment. There was the video tribute — which both Curry and Draymond avoided watching, to prevent getting overemotional right before the start of the game. Curry was originally scheduled to give a brief speech after the video, but he and Klay wisely agreed Monday night that they both needed to be thinking about the game right about then, if possible. Which only underlined how much energy was coursing through the arena.
“It was a really cool experience,” Klay said, after soaking in the roars from this crowd. “I appreciate the fans very much. The Captain’s Hat ended up being a great touch because I’m such a passionate boater. That was a warm-hearted feeling. So it was really cool to see the fans’ gratitude towards myself and something I will never take for granted.”
There was the very specific oddity of watching Klay wear a road-team uniform in this arena. And very specifically, there was the very start of the game, when Curry guarded Klay, and the Mavericks immediately threw it to Klay for an isolated post-up on his buddy.
They’ve guarded each other in practices before. They’ve probably thought a lot about what it would be like in a real game. Then there it was.
“I was so surprised they ran a post-up for him on the first play,” Curry said. “I blacked out on that one. I wasn’t going to let him score and I fouled him.”
Klay went at Curry several times over the course of the game, but Curry blocked one shot and forced an errant fade-away another time. Most of Klay’s 3s came either when Curry had rotated off of him or when Curry was out of the game.
But he did have that shimmy after he made the second of three 3s in a row.
“He did a terrible shimmy — awful,” Draymond said. “That’s the competitive nature. You don’t win four championships together without that competitive fire. He has that. And we’ve known that forever. We have that. And he’s known that forever. … When you play against somebody you’re close with, you want to beat them even more.”
Said Klay: “It was an impromptu thing. When you’re feeling it, you do stuff instinctually. I’ve done it before. I know Steph’s done it many times. So it was fun. He was kind of surprised I did it. But it was a great shot. I’ll probably still do it in the future. I play my best brand of ball when I play loose.”
With Curry guarding Klay and Klay guarding Draymond at times and with the game going back and forth, there was naturally lots of chatter back and forth between the three. Sometimes with smiles. Sometimes not. Hey, what else would you expect?
“That’s my guy, that’s my friend,” Curry said. “Road dog for 13 years, so there’s a lot of history, you’re going to have a back and forth. Some of it was competitive, some of it was fun. And thankfully, we were all able to focus on the game, just hoop and compete.”
Just another game, like Klay said in the days leading up to this?
“I hope y’all didn’t believe him when he said that,” Curry said, grinning. “It was great. It was everything you imagine.”
Not shockingly, Klay was spotted hanging around in the Warriors’ weight room long after the game, laughing and joking with everybody there and assuredly promising that the next time won’t end like this one did. The mood of the night lingered. It was worth savoring. It was worth saluting. And everybody involved wanted more of this — more and more and more.
