Through 24 minutes of game action, Isaiah Thomas was having one of his worst performances of the season in one of the Boston Celtics’ biggest games of the season.
The Celtics point guard struggled mightily in the first half of Friday night’s road showdown with the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors, failing to record a single point while shooting 0 of 7 from the field.
But something clicked for Thomas in the second half, as he exploded for 22 points on 9-of-13 shooting after the break to help the Celtics pull off a miraculous 109-106 win at Oracle Arena. Turns out that “something” was what he was wearing on his feet.
“I switched my shoes,” Thomas told ESPN’s J.A. Adande after the game. “Them other shoes didn’t have any buckets in them.”
Yep, you read that right. After a scoreless first half, the All-Star point guard literally changed shoes at halftime and went on to have one of ohis strongest second halves of the season.
“I always know the All-Star Kobes will give me some type of buckets,” Thomas added.
If that’s not an endorsement for Nike’s shoe modeled after Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, we don’t know what is. Thomas started lighting it up almost immediately after his wardrobe change, dropping 13 points in the first six minutes of the first half.
“I just stayed the course,” Thomas told Adande. “I knew that once I made one shot, I could get in a rhythm. They played pretty good defense in the first half by showing all five guys every time I came off the pick and roll, and my coaches and my teammates just said, ‘Stay the course.’ ”
Thomas can deflect credit all he wants, but on this particular night, it really was the shoes.
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
