Eight years ago: Klay Thompson made an NBA-record 14 threes and scored 52 against the Bulls without playing the fourth quarter

Eight years ago this Thursday, on Monday, October 29, 2018, Klay Thompson made 14 three-pointers against the Chicago Bulls, one more than anyone had ever made in an NBA game, and scored 52 points in a 149-124 Golden State Warriors win at the United Center without playing a minute of the fourth quarter.

The record had belonged to his own backcourt partner. Stephen Curry set the old mark of 13 against New Orleans on November 7, 2016, and Thompson took it from him in 26 minutes and 33 seconds of work, going 14 of 24 from deep, 18 of 29 from the field and 2 of 2 at the line.

How the night unfolded

What made the night strange was the week before it. Thompson had arrived in Chicago in the worst shooting stretch of his career: 5 of 36 from three-point range through Golden State’s first seven games, and no game above 19 points. Inside two quarters he had fixed all of it.

He made 10 threes and scored 36 points before halftime, and the Warriors as a team made 17 threes in the half, a league record at the time. Golden State scored 44 points in the first quarter and 48 in the second, and the 92-50 halftime score was the second-highest-scoring half in NBA history.

The third quarter brought a scare. Thompson took a blow to the head in a collision, was checked for a concussion and needed two stitches above his right eye. He came back wearing a yellow headband, and with 4:53 left in the period he took a pass from Kevin Durant and made a 27-footer for the 14th three, pushing the lead to 113-69. Steve Kerr kept him on the bench for the fourth quarter, with the game long decided, so the record stopped at 14 when it could have grown.

Curry added 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting, Alfonzo McKinnie had 19 points and 10 rebounds off the bench and Durant handed out eight assists. For the Bulls, Zach LaVine and Antonio Blakeney scored 21 each and rookie Wendell Carter Jr. added 18 before a crowd of 21,076. The win lifted Golden State to 7-1; Chicago fell to 2-5.

Why it mattered then

The two-time defending champions had built their run on a pair of shooters who could swing any game, and the Bulls night was the purest example of the other half of the Splash Brothers taking over. It also settled a quiet worry: a 5-for-36 start from a career 40-percent three-point shooter had started to look like more than a slump. After Chicago, nobody was asking.

The night also extended a habit of Thompson’s. In January 2015 he had scored 37 points in a single quarter against Sacramento, and in December 2016 he had scored 60 against Indiana in 29 minutes. His big games tended to arrive in bursts, compressed into a short stretch of court time.

What it led to

Golden State won the Western Conference again that season and reached a fifth straight NBA Finals, where Thompson tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Game 6 against Toronto. He would not play again until January 2022, when he returned for a run that ended with a fourth championship. The 14-three game remained the single-game record when he left Golden State for Dallas in the summer of 2024, and it is still the number every hot shooting night is measured against.