CHICAGO • It was only a matter of time before Klay Thompson would get hot. The (other) sharpshooting guard of the Golden State Warriors ended his slump in a huge way, nailing 14 three-pointers on his way to 52 points in just 26 minutes - a National Basketball Association record for treys.
The defending champions beat hosts Chicago Bulls 149-116, dominating the game so thoroughly that they pulled all of their starters with 4min 53sec left in the third quarter.
Through the season's first seven games, Thompson had shot just five for 36 from three-point range, an unsettling development for a player who is a career 42.2 per cent shooter.
Theories ranged from his pending free agency to his off-season beard being the culprit for his struggles, but Thompson, as shooters so often do, simply shot his way out of a slump.
Once he got hot, his teammates started feeding him the ball and watching the show. The formula has worked in previous games: one in which he scored 60 points (in just 29 minutes) and another in which he recorded a 37-point quarter.
Against Chicago, he shot 18 of 29 overall and 14 of 24 from three-point range, repeatedly finding space on the floor thanks to the sharp passes of Draymond Green, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry.
Curry got the assist for the 13th, which tied his record set in 2016, while Durant assisted on No. 14.
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14
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Record three-pointers Klay Thompson knocked down.
"Even before I went out for the second half, Steph looked at the box score and said, 'Go get it'," Thompson said of the record.
"That just shows the unselfishness that is within him."
The only thing that slowed him down was a collision with Damian Jones in the third quarter that opened a cut on his head.
Thompson needed two stitches after the game but he insisted on staying in the game, putting a bright yellow headband over the cut so it would not violate the NBA's rules on bleeding.
The Warriors scored 92 points in the first half, the second-highest total in NBA history.
NYTIMES
