Klay doubts LeBron lost sleep over his Finals dig
LeBron James withstood everything from a swift punch to the groin to a litany of verbal jabs before delivering Cleveland its first professional sporting title in 45 years.
One of those subtle digs came from Klay Thompson, who proclaimed that he was "shocked" to see James react flippantly to Draymond Green's expletive-laden remarks in the dying moments of Game 4.
"I don't know how the man feels. But obviously people have feelings and people's feelings get hurt even if they're called a bad word. I guess his feelings just got hurt," Thompson said back in June. "I mean, we've all been called plenty of bad words on the basketball court before. Some guys just react to it differently."
With the two teams set to face off for the first time in the 2016-17 season, Thompson doubts James used his words as locker room material.
“I don’t think LeBron really went to sleep, pinned that up and used that for motivation. But if he did, it’s all right,” Thompson told ESPN's Chris Haynes. “We still had three opportunities to close it out, and we didn’t. So, I don’t think that was the game-changer.”
Reports suggest Green called James a "b----" during a heated exchange, which prompted James to denounce Green following Game 4.
"Draymond just said something that I don't agree with," James told reporters in June. "I'm all cool with the competition. I'm all fine with that, but some of the words that came out of his mouth were a little bit overboard, and being a guy with pride, a guy with three kids and a family, things of that nature, some things just go overboard and that's where he took it, and that was it."
Thompson came to Green's defense and took it one step further by piling on James when the series seemed all but over with the Warriors up 3-1. But then Green was slapped with a suspension, injuries rocked the Warriors, and James submitted quite possibly the greatest three-game stretch in Finals history.
The rest was history as James silenced all his detractors en route to his third title.