Game 1 of the NBA Finals in a bubble was going to be weird. Then the Lakers briefly turned into the best shooting team on the planet.
The first game of the NBA Finals this year was always going to be weird. But what happened on Wednesday night was deeply weird even by the standards of this year: The Los Angeles Lakers briefly turned into the best shooting team on the planet.
The Lakers are excellent at many aspects of basketball. Shooting is not one of them. They don’t attempt many 3-pointers and don’t make the ones they take. This is a team that averaged 11 threes per game this season—and then made 11 threes in the first half in Game 1 of the Finals. Their novel strategy of hitting what seemed like a zillion threes is the reason the Lakers took a 1-0 series lead over the Miami Heat with a 116-98 beatdown in an empty arena inside the NBA’s protective bubble, a strange and highly unexpected beginning to a Finals without any sort of precedent.
Anthony Davis hit two as part of his game-high 34 points. LeBron James had two as part of his line of 25 points, 13 rebounds and 9 assists. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made two big ones, Danny Green added three of his own and the only player in the Lakers’ rotation who didn’t contribute a 3-pointer was Dwight Howard, and only because he didn’t bother trying. He could have launched from half-court and it might have found the bottom of the net.
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