According to Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes, Golden State’s Klay Thompson will return to the Warrior lineup for Game 4 of the Finals. Thompson missed the team’s 123-109 Game 3 loss due to an strained hamstring suffered in the later stages of Game 2.
Thompson tried to talk his way into playing in Wednesday night’s game but the Warriors aired on the side of caution and held Klay out.
Head coach Steve Kerr had this to say about the decision to not play Klay:
The whole point was to not risk a bigger injury that would keep him out of the rest of the series. So that was the decision we made, and I feel very comfortable with it. Never would have forgiven myself if I played him tonight and he had gotten hurt. So you live with the decision you make, you make a wise decision, the wisest one you can, and then you live with it and move forward. So the good thing is Klay has done well the last two days, now he has a couple more days to heal, and hopefully he’ll be out there [for Game 4] on Friday.”
Thompson’s absence, along with that of Kevin Durant and a severely hobbled DeMarcus Cousins, was felt in Game 3. Though Curry went off for 47 points, the other starters scored just 36 points and 17 of those were from Draymond Green.
Thompson has been averaging 19.5 points per game and hitting on 41.5 percent of his three-point attempts. He has increased his scoring clip to 23 ppg in the two Finals games he played in.
If the Warriors are to win another game, much less three-peat, they will need a somewhat healthy Klay Thompson.
