Golden State Warriors: 10 Keys To Beating The Cleveland Cavaliers

7. Klay Not Disappearing

There’s no reason to think this will happen again in this year’s Finals, but it’s worth noting that Klay Thompson was a disappearing act in the 2015 NBA Finals.

Coming off what was then the finest season of his career, the other Splash Brother managed a meager 15.8 points per game — on 40.9 percent shooting from the field and 30 percent shooting from three-point range — in the championship round.

That can’t happen again this year, especially if the Cavaliers get Good J.R. Smith for a few games (as opposed to Bad J.R. Smith who was on display for pretty much every game of last year’s series).

That being said, there’s very little reason to believe this will happen again in 2016. Thompson is currently in the middle of his finest postseason yet, averaging 26.2 points per game on stellar .441/.450/.882 shooting splits — all while guarding the other team’s best guard or wing.

Curry was a bit rusty coming off his two-week absence, but that temporary absence may have been a blessing in disguise for the Dubs with the way that Thompson stepped up as the team’s No. 1 option.

You could even argue that 41-point masterpiece in Game 6 of the WCFs, which included an NBA playoff record 11 three-pointers, was a ripple effect of that little bit of extra confidence from his time leading the Warriors without the league MVP.

Of course, we all have known Thompson can dominate any game for quite some time. This is the guy who dropped an NBA record 37 points in a single quarter, after all.

But even early in the conference finals, Thompson had a couple of underwhelming performances, which is something the Dubs would like to avoid in the Finals with so much attention being paid to Curry on the defensive end.

Next: No. 6