Klay Thompson may have never been fired up quite like he was during Tuesday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns.
For the first time in his career, Thompson got ejected. It took him 759 combined regular season and playoff games to get tossed.
But Tuesday, he and Suns shooting guard Devin Booker started chirping and didn’t stop. By midway through the third quarter, they were each assessed a technical foul. Thompson kept jawing at official Ed Malloy as he headed toward Golden State’s bench, and got thrown out of the game.
Thompson finished with two points in the Warriors’ 134-105 loss. He lost his individual matchup, and also the mental battle, to Booker.
In a postgame sideline interview, Booker said he’s always been a fan of Thompson’s. But that shouldn’t prevent them from competing, he said.
“He was just having a tough night,” Booker said postgame. “I think everything plays into that. Just frustration, I’ve been there before. You know what they have, they have four rings and they’re going to use that in all the trash talk, rightfully so. Respectfully. But that don’t have nothing to do with competing.”
What exactly was Thompson telling Booker?
“They have four rings,” Booker said. “Repeated over and over. And they do. They do.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said pregame that Thompson has been frustrated with his minutes limit; it’s possible that spilled over into the game. An offseason mental block prevented Thompson from playing 5-on-5 pickup, so he’s not yet conditioned to play a normal dosage of minutes.
Kerr added that Thompson and Booker have gotten into it over the years.
“They’re both competitive,” Kerr said. “They’re guarding each other. It’s the NBA, the highest competition in the world. Stuff like that happens.”
Booker led the Suns with 34 points on 19 field goal attempts. He’s the first player in Suns franchise history to record three 30-point games in the first four games of a season.
Thompson finished with two points on 1-for-8 shooting. He didn’t hit any of his five 3-pointers. Even though he got multiple stops against Booker, including a strip and blocked shot, Thompson registered a plus-minus of -12.
As Thompson headed to the locker room, he appeared to point to his fingers, reminding the Suns’ bench of his four championship rings.
Thompson’s ejection came when he yelled at Malloy, not Booker, as he headed toward Golden State’s bench. Stephen Curry said he didn’t believe Thompson deserved to get tossed.
“The conversation (with Booker) was part of basketball,” Curry said. “It doesn’t happen every night, but it’s not a surprise. I actually thought it wasn’t ejection-worthy, because we were all kind of — 800 people on the court, just trying to get everybody out of the way. It just felt like it was too much. I disagreed with that because it was just a lot of chirping on both sides. Everybody was just trying to collect themselves in that moment.”
Seven technical fouls were handed out in the third period alone. After Thompson’s ejection, the Suns immediately went on an 11-0 run to take a commanding lead.