Golden State Warriors and Klay Thompson have returned to the NBA Finals after three seasons. The Warriors’ sharpshooter reflected on returning to the Finals after the 2019 dramatic loss and his injury that cost him one season before lose one more due to another serious injury hit.
“Well, there’s a lot of emotions that day. We came real close to having another opportunity to three-peat, which hasn’t been done since Shaq and Kobe,” Thompson said Sunday. The Warriors dealt with various adversities through the 2018-19 playoff campaign.
The Warriors missed Kevin Durant with injury twice during the 2019 playoffs and in the close out game in the Finals against Toronto missed Klay Thompson with a season-ending injury, which kept him away for a significant amount of time.
Before having the chance to return, Thompson suffered another serious injury blow during the 2020 offseason and missed his second consecutive year of action. He was able to hit the floor again last January as the Warriors returned to contention.
“When I hurt my knee, it was kind of uncharted territory for me because I had been able to be consistently present in the lineup my whole career. So I had to kind of realign my whole train of thought with the months coming up.”
“I knew I had a lot of training ahead, and it was actually hard because I didn’t really get a break,” Golden State’s sharpshooting star said. “Usually, after such a long season, you get a nice summer break.
I had to go straight into rehab, and it was kind of a long cycle after that, a couple years. Now to be here again, I wouldn’t change anything. I’m very grateful and everything I did to that point led to this, so I would not change a thing,” Thompson concluded.
All things consider, Stephen Curry said that he had a bunch of mixed emotion after the loss to the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 Finals. Curry said the team had to deal with Losing KD a couple of day before, Klay’s injury and the end of an era in Oracle Arena.
“To think it’s three years ago and all that we’ve been through, all that Klay has been through personally since that time, and to be back here, it adds a sense of gratitude of being back on this stage,” Curry said.
“Hopefully we can get this job done and pay homage to that three-year journey actually leading to something truly special,” he continued.
After tying the Finals’ series on the road, the Warriors will try to keep the home advantage on their side against Boston Monday night.
