Klay Thompson hits 12 3-pointers against OKC, but it’s a zero in his box score that stands out

Over the years, the Golden State Warriors have depended more on Stephen Curry than the whole “strength in numbers” mantra would suggest. Even during Kevin Durant’s super years, there were two decidedly different Warriors teams: with and without Curry.

Well they will without curry for these next few weeksand they don’t have much room for error as they struggle to not only rise above the play-in line in a packed Western Conference, but also not fall in the lottery, which is actually possible.

In their first full game without Curry since he went down with a left knee injury, the Warriors caught fire from 3 and looked as good as they have all season in a 141-114 win over visiting Thunder. This is after the Warriors wrapped up a win over Dallas in the game where Curry was injured.

Continuing this season with a pleasantly surprising theme: Golden State was fine without a curry. The 16 games he has missed have gone 8-8 overall and the last nine games have gone 7-2.

On Monday, Jordan Poole and Klay Thompson led the lead as the Warriors tied with 26 3-pointers, just one short of the franchise record. Thompson made 12 alone, two fewer than his single-game NBA record of 14. He only needed 16 tries. A 75 percent clip. Not bad.

It’s the ninth time in Thompson’s career that he’s hit at least 10 3s in a game, which would also be an NBA record if not for Curry, who has made it 22 times. Curry and Thompson are the only players in history to record multiple games with at least 12 3-pointers (they did it twice each).

Thompson’s craziest stat of the night? He didn’t attempt a single free throw. His 42 points is the most in the league this season without a free throw, surpassing Donovan Mitchell’s 38 against the Knicks in October.

That’s not a stat that warriors will be happy with, impressive as it is to deal that much damage on jump shots. No team in the league attempted fewer free throws than the Warriors, who attempted just seven on Monday and even some of those were in trash time.

Thompson has never been a great free-throw guy. He hardly gets to the rim or even to the track. To be honest, I’m not sure you want him to dribble more than necessary. Still, it’s a tough hill for the Warriors, who not only shoot the fewest free throws, but also give up the most at the other end.

It’s not likely that that will change. You just need to take a lot of shots to overcome the discrepancy.

But back to the positive: Poole was great. For one night he was absolutely Steph-like. He killed the Thunder as a creator and recorded a career-high 12 assists. That sprint and kick to Thompson was a work of art:

Here, Poole attacks the free side of the rim, forcing Josh Giddey to turn before dropping a bounce pass on the later vacated Andrew Wiggins for the gimme deuce.

Then, just when it looked like it might be going to be a relatively quiet night for Poole, he began chasing his own shot and finished with five 3-pointers and 21 points in a masterfully skillful and patient performance. It’s a curry thing. A quiet night of filming turned nuclear in the blink of an eye.

Poole and Thompson obviously aren’t going to play like this every night. But if they can get a hot streak over the next week and a half to spur the Warriors on their way into the All-Star break, man, what a boost it would be when everyone is so important at that streak.

Next up is Portland on Wednesday.