Klay Thompson Is the Heat's X-Factor as the Five-Game West Coast Trip Opens Monday Night Against the Lakers
Twenty-five points in 26 minutes against Indiana turned Miami's season around; now the Heat take Thompson's hot hand to Los Angeles on Monday and to Golden State — his home for a decade — on Thursday.
The Miami Heat fly west this week with a two-game winning streak built out of an 0-4 start, and the clearest reason for the turn has a name: Klay Thompson. In Friday's 145-125 NBA Cup win over Indiana, Miami's starting shooting guard scored 25 points in 26 minutes on 9-of-14 shooting, draining five of his seven three-pointers in the third quarter alone — the performance that Sports Illustrated's Heat coverage identified this weekend as proof Thompson is this team's X-factor.
The numbers behind the night explain the label. Thompson is now shooting 39 percent from three-point range, just under his career norm, after connecting at only 32.4 percent across Miami's first five games. His spacing changed the geometry of the offense: Indiana paid for double-teaming Giannis Antetokounmpo, teammates hunted the hot hand, and Erik Spoelstra's added set plays and pick-and-rolls in the last two games are built in part to keep defenders from finding Thompson late.
The trip now tests whether Friday travels. The five-game Western Conference swing begins Monday night in Los Angeles against the Lakers and reaches Golden State on Thursday — the building where Thompson splashed for more than a decade alongside Stephen Curry before his Dallas buyout brought him to Miami. The Heat do not need 25 every night; they need the gravity. If Thompson holds near 39 percent from deep, the version of this offense that scored 145 on Friday is the one that comes home.
