Before every game, Klay Thompson sits at his locker and reads the newspaper, devouring the sports section, keeping up on current events and skimming through the movie reviews and financial reports.
It’s a little-known ritual for someone who is much more inquisitive than his public perception would suggest, and that’s just the way the Warriors’ shooting guard would have preferred it to remain.
“He hides a lot of things, I think,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said.
Thompson doesn’t particularly like being in the spotlight, but he’s finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the attention while putting together what has been probably the NBA’s best 2016 postseason.
A two-time All-Star, Thompson, 26, averaged 27.2 points through the first two playoff rounds — just 0.2 of a point shy of postseason leader Kevin Durant — on 47.4 percent shooting and a league-best 4.7 three-pointers per game.
In the Warriors’ clinching game against Portland on Wednesday, Thompson had his fourth 30-point performance of the postseason and connected on six three-pointers. His seven straight games with at least five three-pointers is an NBA-best playoff streak, and his 28 three-pointers were the most ever in a five-game series.
“I will have to say one thing: You’ve got to talk about Klay Thompson,” Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said in an unprompted speech after a 12-minute postgame interview Wednesday. “That dude had the best series I think I’ve ever seen him play on both ends of the floor.
Thompson would be more than happy to continue hiding in Curry’s prodigious shadow and uses every forced media session to riff about his backcourt mate’s unmatched ball-handling and shot-making and his other teammates’ screen-setting.
But with Curry missing six of the Warriors’ 10 postseason games with ankle and knee injuries, Thompson excelled as the team’s No. 1 scoring option. On top of lighting up the stat sheet, Thompson made life miserable for Houston’s James Harden and Portland’s Damian Lillard.
With Steph Curry out because of an ankle injury, fellow Splash Brother Klay Thompson carried the Warriors with 34 points in a win over the Rockets in game 2 of their opening round playoff series.
Thompson used his unrelenting stamina and 6-foot-9 wingspan to force the high-scoring guards into a combined 38.3 percent shooting — 4.7 percentage points less than their regular-season numbers.
The Warriors will need a similar performance in the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City point guard Russell Westbrook, a ferocious competitor who might be the league’s fastest player. The Warriors limited the All-Star to 34.7 percent shooting from the floor and 16.7 percent shooting from three-point range in a three-game, regular-season-series sweep.
“You can never let your guard down” against Westbrook, Curry said. “You’ve got to try to think one step ahead, get back in transition, not let him get a head of steam and make him play in a crowd.
Those are the types of things that were being said about Thompson in the first two rounds, when Kerr told his sweet-shooting wing to channel his inner Reggie Miller.
Thompson said he’s long had great endurance — he ran an average of 2.61 miles per game (1.46 miles on offense and 1.15 miles on defense) in the first two rounds — and his hatred of allowing an opponent to score adds fuel to his fire.
The fifth-year guard spent Thursday’s off day strolling through a dog park with his beloved English bulldog, Rocco, watching the deciding Game 6 of the Thunder-Spurs series and having a light dinner.
He rewarded himself after a Game 4 victory in Portland with a cheeseburger from a favorite childhood restaurant, Burgerville — but was quick to point out that he didn’t add the usual milkshake.
“I agree,” Thompson said when asked about Curry saying the Portland series was Thompson’s best. “My energy on both offense and defense never really withered. For me, I think I was locked in for five straight games.
That’s about the most crowing you’ll get from Thompson, who rarely talks, less often shows off his dry sense of humor and even more infrequently displays emotion on the court.
Thompson said he’s always been a “stoic competitor,” something he got from his father and his Bahamian roots. It’s nearly impossible to tell from Thompson’s reaction whether he just made or missed a jumper, and he almost never complains about foul calls.
“Klay just wants to go about his business and does everything sort of below the radar,” Kerr said. “… He’s jubilant inside. Every once in a while, when he gets really hot and makes five in a row, he’ll gesture to the crowd to stand up or something like that.
Thompson prefers to just retreat to the tranquility of his locker and quietly read his newspaper.
But he can’t avoid seeing his name in the headlines a lot more often these days.