A look at Steve Kerr’s experimentation with Klay Thompson against the Jazz

Thompson and Jonathan Kuminga carried the scoring load with Steph Curry resting.

With no Steph Curry in order to allow him to rest — and facing a Utah Jazz team that was on an 11-game losing streak — the scoring reins for the Golden State Warriors had to be taken by either Klay Thompson or the returning Jonathan Kuminga.

The latter was coming off a six-game absence and was using this game to get his legs under him. Based on his stat line against the Jazz, it didn’t look like he was just warming up: 21 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field. He scored with his typical drives to the rim, making himself available as a cutter in space, and finishing advantage situations with typical aplomb.

With Kuminga’s return, Steve Kerr was able to bring back inverted ballscreens to the menu, which wasn’t available to him last game against the Dallas Mavericks due to the absences of Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins. It’s typically Curry or Thompson setting these screens to take advantage of their pull as shooters — i.e., their defenders’ reluctance to detach from either Splash Brother, which can create coverage confusion at the point of the screen.

But with Curry out and Thompson being preserved as much as possible, inverted ballscreens for Kuminga were used to hunt mismatches on switches by the Jazz:

Kuminga’s 21 points were good enough to be second place. Thompson took the crown of primary scorer tonight: 32 points on 23 shots (6-of-10 on twos, 6-of-13 on threes) and 67.0% True Shooting. It was a job typically made difficult without Curry as the focal point — but against a defensively compromised Jazz team without some of their best players, it was a prime opportunity for the Warriors to feature Thompson as their offensive centerpiece.

Not only was it out of necessity that the Warriors featured Thompson heavily tonight — it was paramount that he maintained his shooting rhythm in time for key post-season matchups. Thompson has a legendary tendency to go on unconscious scoring binges at any given moment, but the chances of those happening increase the more in-rhythm he is.

Since a decision for him to come off the bench was made on February 15 — coincidentally, their previous matchup against the Jazz — Thompson has put up the following numbers:

• 18.9 points
• 53.6% on twos
• 41.4% on threes (on 9.5 attempts per game)
• 60.5% True Shooting

While Thompson may not be the automatic 20-plus points-per-game scorer he was during his heyday, the Warriors still count on him to be a key auxiliary scorer and pressure relief for Curry. But having him be the primary option on offense wasn’t ever really an option even during his prime, due to his limited handle and average passing chops. The best use of him on offense was always as an off-ball movement shooter, a catch-and-shoot sniper, and a cutter.

The advantages Thompson was creating were more of him drawing two defenders around off-ball screens, which was a key differentiating factor between him and Curry, who was able to create advantages through on and off-ball screens. As of late, however, Thompson has been seeing more opportunities to generate advantages on the ball.

Thompson will never get the label of being an elite passer against aggressive coverages, but he has improved enough to the point where he will make the correct decision more often than not. His passes either create a direct opportunity for a teammate, or lead to a collapsing defense and a hockey assist:

Thompson attracts these kinds of coverages even if he isn’t as proficient of a dribbler as Curry and other perimeter superstars are because of his reputation, which is something that most opponents base their coverages on. It wouldn’t matter if Thompson was shooting well below his career average from three-point range — teams don’t want to risk lighting the match that could easily turn into an uncontrollable wildfire.

Thompson averages nearly six fewer pull-up threes than catch-and-shoot threes this season, but he posts a slightly higher percentage on the former (39.2%) than the latter (38.0%). Pull-up threes won’t ever be a bread-and-butter shot for him on typical nights with Curry around, but against the Jazz, he proved why he still demands extra bodies around ballscreens:

But his best use on offense will always be on catch-and-shoot opportunities — as a decoy and as a finisher off of decoys.

Given the nature of the game and the opponent, Kerr had a bit of room to experiment with sets he rarely uses. As expected, two of them featured Thompson prominently as both of the roles mentioned above.

“Horns” sets — a formation with a ballhandler at the top of the key, two players on the elbows, and two players on both corners — aren’t usually a prominent feature of their offense, but the Warriors had Thompson be one of the elbow players on two possessions that used the same play, with different results.

The first:

After faking a ballscreen, Thompson relocates from the elbow to the baseline. He then comes off the “exit” screen by Draymond Green. At the same time, Chris Paul comes off the ballscreen by Jackson-Davis and draws two to himself. Jackson-Davis finds himself with an open lane to the rim for two reasons:

1. Primarily, because Thompson coming off the exit screen draws the rim protector (Omer Yurtseven) away from the paint.
2. Brandin Podziemski “shaking” (lifting) from the corner toward the wing draws his defender away from a potential tag or rotation toward the roll.

When the Warriors run this very same Horns set again, the Jazz’s focus on containing the roll (through switching) opens the catch-and-shoot opportunity for Thompson in the corner:

On a different half-court set, Thompson had another chance to be the finisher on a created advantage. When Paul and Green link up on an “Angle” ballscreen, another action occurs on the weak side simultaneously: a flare screen for Thompson toward the corner, otherwise known as a “Hammer” screen:

The ballscreen action forces help from the weak side against Green’s roll — which frees Thompson to cut toward the basket off of the “Hammer” screen. Help comes anyway, but Thompson adjusts with a reverse layup.

With key games still coming up — the Warriors are facing the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night to determine who takes the tiebreaker — having Thompson be in this kind of form can only help Curry and the Warriors increase their chances of making it out of the Play-In Tournament and notching another playoff berth on their belt.