Max after his career high 8 3s vs. NYK: “I think it’s been mental for me, just continuing to be shot aggressive and confident in my shot. Obviously putting in the work each & every day helps, but I think for the most part for me it’s just mentally being aggressive & having confidence in myself.”

4 comments

1. Having Klay here to mentor Max has been such an incredible benefit to his growth.

2. Some other quotes from Max that stick out earlier/throughout the season related to this:

   After the 11/29 game vs. Clippers where he went 1 for 9 shooting, he said the following re: how having Klay as a mentor has been:

   > “He’s been great. He’s someone that I watch a lot. He talks, he’s very vocal. He likes to show w/his actions too. He’s very good at instilling confidence in guys. I wasn’t necessarily making shots [vs. LAC], but he was still telling me to shoot it. That helps my confidence.”

   [From Abby Jones](https://x.com/_abigaiiiil/status/2006950542396825732?s=46) after the New Year’s Day game vs. the Sixers

   > Max Christie shares his biggest takeaway from working closely with Klay Thompson is his mindset when it comes to shooting.
   >
   > “Regardless of if he’s shooting well or not, his ability to kinda just have a short term memory and continue to fire away when he’s open. I think that that mindset has gotten him to what is going to be a Hall of Fame career. For me, I think continuing that where if I don’t make my first few or I’m getting tough looks; just having that short term memory and continuing to be aggressive and look for my shot.”

   I think we’ve all assumed that Klay’s influence on Max’s shooting has been predominantly the physical process (footwork, movement, etc.) & mechanics side of things – and he has helped in those areas, to be sure, per Max himself and also [Max’s tape](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mavericks/s/6QtTq1Apg1) itself – so shoutout to Klay for working with Max on the wildly under-appreciated mental aspect of shooting.

   Also, a great side note/story re: Max’s point about Klay’s skill of having a very shot memory and how spot on he is about Klay possessing that ability (and funnily enough, it also echoes what Max said in the video about how the flow state you get into as a shooter during games like his 8 3s game is tantamount to being unconscious) from Andre Iguodola’s memoir:

   > “But like every professional athlete, he has another side to him. I watched from the sidelines the game in which he scored 37 points in a quarter against Sacramento. Even though it was a statistical anomaly and an all-time record, it was in a certain way exactly what you would expect from Klay. He is like Steph in the sense that he has the gene, the ability to become so caught up in a game that he’s entirely unable to remember what happened twenty seconds ago. In a shooter this can be a tremendously helpful quality. Klay can go 0 for 7 from distance in the first two quarters of a game and literally have no idea that he’s 0 for 7. His brain just doesn’t track it. Steph is the same way. For these guys, there are no missed shots-all these guys see is the next one. That is a very unusual skill. Most players, myself included, simply aren’t like that. If I miss three three-point shots in a row, I’m probably not shooting from distance for the rest of the game-that’s just the way I am. I’m not trying to end a game 0 percent from three. But Klay is different. He simply does not care. He’ll just keep shooting until it turns around. And it always turns around. That’s how they can go from shooting 0 percent to ending the game hitting ten or twelve straight. It’s just something, some incredibly focused, almost mercenary quality inside them.
   >
   > A lot of times people will say that a player is “unconscious” when he or she is going off in a game. And from what I’ve seen with Klay, that’s an accurate description. He gets a laser focus, and it seems like everything else disappears. Being the kind of player I am, that sometimes surprises me. My whole thing is to see the game, know the situation. As soon as I touch the ball, I’m immediately trained to look around me, know where everyone is, who’s cutting where, how much time is on the clock, how many fouls each player has, how many we have collectively. That’s probably why I would know that I was 0 for 3. But Klay, when he gets that laser focus, sees nothing but the hole.

3. Max is definitely one piece of our new foundation.

4. Thought lil dicky was talking at first