The Golden State Warriors got embarrassed in their last loss, losing to the Phoenix Suns by 29 points. It was a rough night for almost everybody on the Warriors, as Stephen Curry was the only player to score more than 20 points (21).
Jordan Poole played fairly well off the bench, but one player who played particularly poorly was Klay Thompson. The Warriors star scored just two points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field and 0-of-5 shooting from behind the three-point line.
Thompson eventually received the first ejection of his career, and Golden State spent most of the game fairly upset with the referees. After the game, Suns big man Deandre Ayton said that Phoenix was extremely physical and accused the Warriors of complaining to the refs too much.
“[We] got to them,” Ayton said. “And teams don’t like that. When you keep hitting, you know, hitting people over and over, especially to the legal limit, people get frustrated and they complain to the refs … But we stayed here and I was really proud of that.”
Phoenix shot 34 free throws in the game, while the Warriors only attempted 17 – half the number of the Suns. In the end, the Suns made 28 free throws to the Warriors’ 13 – a 15-point disparity.
Curry Sounds Off on Thompson Ejection
As noted, Thompson’s ejection from the game was the highlight (or lowlight) of the contest. He got into a scuffle with Devin Booker and eventually made one too many comments to the referees.
However, after the game, Curry said that Thompson’s comments didn’t warrant an ejection.
“I actually thought it wasn’t ejection-worthy,” Curry said. “There was 800 people on the court… It was a lot of chirping on both sides.”
The Suns All-Star also spoke about the incident, saying that he has a lot of respect for Thompson.
Booker Shows Love to Thompson
Despite the altercation between Booker and Thompson, Booker showed a ton of love to Thompson after the game. He said that he looked up to the Warriors star when he was entering the league, but also noted that won’t stop him from playing with a competitive edge.
“Man, I love Klay Thompson,” Booker said. “And I have from the beginning. From the draft coming out, I said I wanted to be Klay Thompson. You know, that doesn’t excuse us from competing against each other and talking a little mess with each other. So I have fun with it. Big fan of his and his competitive nature. And that’s that.”
He followed that up by noting that Thompson’s rough shooting night likely caused him to get frustrated.
“Just having a tough night,” said Booker. “I think everything plays into that. It’s frustration. I’ve been there before. And you know what they have, they have the four rings, so they’re going to use that in all the trash talk, rightfully so, respectively. But that don’t have nothing to do with it.”
As the season goes on, Thompson will undoubtedly find a rhythm. This is the first time he’s been able to open a system in over three years, so it might take a bit longer than usual.