But it all went splat in the second round of the playoffs. Thompson only made 34 percent of his field goals against the Lakers and went 3 of 9, 3 of 9, 2 of 6 and 2 of 12 from 3 in the final four games, three losses. He took a few ill-advised jumpers late in the gut-punch Game 4 loss and finished 3 of 19 in the elimination Game 6, the last taste of failure he’d get before a long summer. “Stings bad,” Thompson said. “Bad. Because you want to win against a team that is a division rival, you want to beat your hometown, you want to beat your friends who are fans of the team, you want to beat LeBron (James) obviously. We have such a deep history with him. Kudos to him. He’s still out here playing at the highest level he possibly can. So, yeah, it stings. Any time you come up short of your goal, and we have many times, it’s just motivation. It’s fuel. You think about it the whole summer. How could you have prepared better?” -via The Athletic / October 11, 2023
