Klay Thompson Says GSW Would Have Won NBA Finals If He Didn’t Suffer Injury

The Golden State Warriors missed the chance to win the NBA Finals. Kawhi Leonard and his team were better organized, and the Warriors were plagued with injuries. Klay Thompson suffered a terrible injury in Game 6 of the Finals. According to him, the Warriors would have won the title if he didn’t suffer an injury.

“In my mind, yes, we would’ve won if I did’t get hurt,” Thompson told The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson. “But that’s just the nature of sports, you know? What-ifs? It doesn’t matter. It’s if you do your deed or not. In my mind, I think we would’ve. But you never know. That’s the hard part you’ve got to accept.

“I honestly felt like I was at the peak of my NBA career up to that point. I was at my best. The way I was shooting the ball, the way I was playing defense. I felt like I was one of the best players out there. In past series, or Finals, you know, I’ve been able to defer. But in that series, I felt like I was just, like, as close to unstoppable as I’ve ever been.”

This injury helped Thompson perceive things in a different way.

“I look at all the guys who had bad luck getting injured against us the last few years, and I’ve honestly become so much more sympathetic,” Thompson said. “Yeah. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Thompson had never suffered such a terrible injury. He said, “I knew I hurt something, but I’ve just never done an ACL or any type of ligament. I’ve never torn nothing in my life. So, when I did that, I thought it might have been a sprained knee. Maybe I’d go back … I didn’t even think about it. I just heard that I had to go shoot the free throws and I literally just turned around and walked back like it was …

“Like I had to. I don’t know. It was just something in me that told me to. And, I don’t know, man, it’s The Finals, you know? I don’t want to leave points on the board. Those are hard to get. So many dudes have a whole illustrious career and never even got a sniff of the Finals. I was very lucky to be in that position.

“I was trying to stay in,” Thompson said. “Not even, like, consciously trying. Just like, my intuition. After you hit a free throw, you just jog back on defense. So I wasn’t really in deep thought or anything about like, ‘Dang this could hurt.’ I just wanted to keep playing. It was Game 6. It was The Finals.”