Champagne soaked and full of true joy, the Warriors sharpshooter had a memorable press conference after Golden State won their fourth title in eight years by defeating the Boston Celtics 103-90 in Game 6 on Thursday. Thompson was in rare form, wearing an omnipresent smile while he fondly talked about the journey it took for the Warriors to win another championship.
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For Thompson, the victory was the direct result of a total team effort as the Warriors kept facing critics and adversity but yet, they still persevered.
“A lot of chatter. A lot of doubters,” Thompson said. “But you know what, you just put that in your fuel tank and you just keep going. And it does definitely hit different.
“Like the guys we integrated here, we cannot be here without them, whether it was Wiggs, who is around the corner, I don’t know, he’s chilling somewhere – there he is. That man made my life so easy. I used to have to do his job and I’m looking at him like that is exhausting, Bro, you’ve got to get buckets and guard the best player? That’s crazy.
“Jordan Poole, his development, guys we picked up in free agency, Otto [Porter Jr.] and Beli [Nemanja Bjelica]. How about Kevon Looney; the man had a 22-rebound game. Just all down the board. And this was beyond the guys who got big minutes in the playoffs, guys like Juan Toscano and Damion Lee who are ready when they are called upon and won us big games in the regular season. This is a collective season and strength in numbers is alive and well.”
Strength in numbers is the team mantra of the Warriors. It’s the internal belief system they established during the start of the dynastic run, a commitment to buying in and doing it all for the team.
All of the Warriors truly believe in the idea of strength in numbers and that’s why Thompson made a point to call out Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr., who mockingly tweeted the saying after Memphis beat Golden State in March.
“I can’t wait, there is this one player on the Grizzlies who tweeted ‘strength in numbers’ after they beat us in the regular season and it pissed me off so much,” Thompson angrily said. “I can’t wait to retweet that thing. Frigging bum. I had to watch that, like this frigging – okay, okay. Sorry. Bad memory just popped up. Going to mock us? Like, you ain’t ever been there before, Bro. We been there. We know what it takes. Hold that. Twitter fingers, can you believe it? “I’ve got a memory like an elephant, I don’t forget.”
To paraphrase Omar Little, if you come at the Thompson and the Warriors, you best not miss.
