Klay Thompson Dropped 60 Points In 29 Minutes In A Historic, Otherworldly Performance

Usually when groups of basketball players have superteams, they have a Big Three. The Golden State Warriors have a Big Four: Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson. Durant and Curry have been predictably fantastic, Green has been kicky, and Thompson has kind of been forgotten about during all of this.

On Monday night, Thompson decided he had enough, and did so by having a historically great night — Thompson became the first player in the short clock era to score 60 points in under 30 minutes.

He played out of his dang mind against the Indiana Pacers, scoring his 60 in 29 minutes on 21-for-33 shooting from the field, 8-for-14 shooting from three, and 10-for-11 shooting from the free throw line. This happened over the course of three quarters, and because Steve Kerr apparently doesn’t like running up the score, he sat Thompson during the fourth. Still, by the time that Thompson hit the bench, he had 60 points while the Pacers only had 83. It was insane.

Thompson had 40 points at halftime! Forty points! He is nominally the team’s third scoring option, but by the time they went to the locker room, he had the second-highest scoring total for a Warriors player in a game this season. At one time during the second quarter, Thompson was especially hot. He got the ball on the wing for a wide open three in transition – which is usually easy enough for him, but when he’s locked in, it’s like shooting a layup – knocked it down, and Curry proceeded to start jumping around like a maniac.

Everyone has wondered how the Warriors would look this year, mostly because of the “four stars, one ball” issue some anticipated they’d face (this “issue” was kind of put to rest on Monday). Thompson has been the guy who has probably suffered the most from Durant being around as another high-scoring wing player, but Monday was a reminder that when he’s on, Klay Thompson is one of the best basketball players alive.