In the 2020 NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to close out the Miami Heat in Game 5 after taking a 3-1 series lead.<\/p>\n
Late in the game, the Lakers found themselves down 109-108, but they had the ball with the shot clock off, giving them a chance to ice the game and series. On that possession, Lakers star LeBron James drove to the basket and took multiple defenders with him, which left sharpshooter Danny Green all alone at the top of the key.<\/p>\n
James found Green, who didn\u2019t hesitate to pull the trigger on a shot that would\u2019ve given L.A. the lead. Unfortunately, he left it short. The Lakers were able to grab the rebound but then immediately turned it over, which led to a Miami win.<\/p>\n
Green received tons of heat after missing that 3-pointer, and he recently revealed that his wife told him to turn off his phone following the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember after the game, wifey was like, \u2018Just turn your phone off,\u2019 or like, \u2018Don\u2019t go on Instagram,’\u201d Green recalled. \u201cAnd I wasn\u2019t even thinking about that at the time. I was just thinking like, \u2018Damn, I can\u2019t believe I missed the shot.\u2019 And then she was like, \u2018Just turn your phone off.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Oh, damn, people actually, they\u2019re gonna come for me for this one.\u2019 And they still do to this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I don\u2019t give a damn. It\u2019s a basketball game. Obviously, we still won. We ended up making it happen. Of course I would have loved to have made the shot. There\u2019s been plenty of shots I\u2019ve been a part of that were big moments, and I\u2019ve made some, and I\u2019ve missed some. That was one of \u2019em. It\u2019s unfortunate, but it helped build character within me and within us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Green missed out on a potentially iconic moment in Game 5, he was able to redeem himself in Game 6. He put together a solid performance in which he had 11 points, five rebounds and one assist, making a trio of 3-pointers to help the Lakers shut the door on the Heat. L.A. walked away with a 106-93 victory to officially clinch the NBA title.<\/p>\n
All in all, Green had a shaky shooting series against the Heat. He certainly hit some key shots but overall went 28.9 percent from 3-point range in the NBA Finals. In the first three rounds of the playoffs, he shot 36.4 percent from deep.<\/p>\n
But nobody can say that the moment was too big for Green in the NBA Finals, as he established himself as a strong performer on that stage throughout his career. Across several trips to the NBA Finals over the years, Green shot 42.1 percent from 3-point range, even including his rocky shooting numbers in the 2020 series.<\/p>\n
Green, who retired in 2024, finished his career with three rings. They came with the San Antonio Spurs, Toronto Raptors and Lakers. The sharpshooter and one-time All-Defense selection will likely be remembered as one of the most notable role players of his era given all the championship teams he played on.<\/p>\n
As for the Lakers, they\u2019re currently trying to return to their 2020 heights. They haven\u2019t reached the NBA Finals since the bubble, but they are going to have a strong foundation in place as long as star guard Luka Doncic remains with the franchise. This will be a big offseason for L.A. as the team looks to build a contender around him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 2020 NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to close out the Miami Heat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,1333,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,189,6],"class_list":["post-756215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-lakers","tag-basketball","tag-danny-green","tag-la","tag-la-lakers","tag-lakers","tag-lalakers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangeleslakers","tag-miami-heat","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116717519071665229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}