Warriors' Klay Thompson Says 'I Really Let the Trolls Get to Me' After 41-Point Game

After a month of battling a shooting slump, the old Klay Thompson was finally back in a Warriors uniform Sunday night.

Thompson scored a season-high 41 points, hitting 10 of his 13 three-point attempts, seemingly regaining his confidence in the process as he lead the Warriors to a 127-120 win over the Houston Rockets.

“I don’t care anymore,” Thompson said, per Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. “I really let the trolls get to me. Like, ‘What am I doing?’ I had just a revelation where I was like, ‘Man, just be you and everything will play out.’ Criticize me all you want. But I know how great I am and what I’m capable of, and I think real Warriors fans know that as well.”

Thompson, in his first full season back in action after missing 30 months due to leg injuries, has struggled mightily over the course of the season's first month. He came into Sunday averaging 15.5 points per game while shooting a career-low 36.3 percent from the field, including 33.6 percent from beyond the arc.

The breakout performance lifted Thompson's numbers closer to respectability, as he shot up 4.1 percentage points to 37.7 percent from three-point range based just off that one game. Thompson's struggles were one of the major focuses during the Warriors' disappointing start to their title defense, with the five-time All-Star clearly taking the criticism personally.

"It hurts when someone like Charles Barkley, with the platform he has, says you're not the same player as prior to the injuries you had. It's like, no duh, man," he said in response to the Hall of Famer saying Thompson isn't the same player. "I tore my ACL and my Achilles in consecutive years and still helped a team win a championship. I mean, that hurt hearing that. Because it's like, man, I put in so much freaking effort to get back to this point. Like, it's hard to even put into words what I had to do to be the player I am today."

While Thompson may never reach his 2019 heights again, Sunday's breakout could go a long way to getting him back to being a net-positive player.