Turns out Shaquille O’Neal is Danny Green’s shooting coach
Danny Green made six 3-pointers in the Game 3 of the NBA Finals, after he got some simple shooting advice from an unlikely source.
During the Eastern Conference Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors guard Danny Green shot just 17.4 percent from 3-point range (4-for-23). He’s been up-and-down through the playoffs, converting over 35 percent from beyond the arc overall, but he is 11-for-22 through three games of the NBA Finals.
In Game 3 Wednesday night, Green went 6-for-10 from beyond the arc and nearly equaled his point total from the first two games.
The other player to come to the Raptors from the Spurs in the Kawhi Leonard, Green is also an important player on the defensive end for Toronto. But if he’s not shooting well, his overall contribution is diminished.
Green clearly found something in Game 3. He revealed the advice he got, and who he got it from, during his postgame presser.
https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1136492285468635136
"He’s a pure shooter, I don’t know if you guys knew that…. I spoke to him before the game briefly. He’s always on the TNT set and he was out there right before the game. And every time I see him, he’s giving me his pure shooting advice, you know, because he was good at it.He was telling me to be confident and hold the follow through. Obviously, after a good shooting night it’s easy to see that his advice has worked. He always just yells to me ‘leave it!’ That’s his way of saying leave your hand up there, hold your follow through, and be confident in your shot."
The TNT/NBA TV crew has some shooters on it, like Reggie Miller and Dennis Scott. But who gave Green the advice? None other than Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq acknowledged it himself after the game.
https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1136484709846925312
"What I saw about Danny when I was in Cleveland, you know, the guy didn’t get a lot of playing time but he practiced hard…. I said ‘look, I played with a lot of shooters. And I’m not going to tell you how [to shoot] because I’ve never been a shooter, but I played with [Dennis] Scott… Every time they left it – just leave it up there. I’ve seen Stojakovic. I played with Rick Fox. Big Shot Bob [Robert Horry]. Every time they leave it, it goes in.I just brought him over here because I saw him messing around in the warmups. I said ‘hey man, this is the Finals. Leave it and stop [expletive] around. Get your game right.’"
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Holding your follow-through is a simple shooting concept, but even NBA players need a reminder sometimes. Shaq was not even a good foul shooter, but he paid attention to those who made their hay from the perimeter and the Raptors can thank him for pulling Green aside before Game 3.