EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Magic Johnson had the junior sky hook in 1985, the shot that allowed the Lakers to eventually, and finally, beat the Boston Celtics.
Kobe and Shaq connected on their legendary alley-oop dunk in 2000, forever cementing their status in Laker lore.
Anthony Davis now has a shot he can reminisce about forever: His three-pointer at the buzzer gave the Lakers a 105-103 victory Sunday over the Denver Nuggets in Game two of the Western Conference finals.
It delighted his teammates and provided a 2-0 series edge, but the Lakers’ work isn’t done going into Game 3 Tuesday night.
Not even close.
The Nuggets came back from a 3-1 series deficit in the first round against Utah, a stunning reversal for any team in any given playoff season. Then the Nuggets did it again in the West semifinals, getting the best of the Clippers after a similar 3-1 deficit.
This had never been done twice by the same team in the same year. If Davis’ shot was off the mark, the Lakers would have found themselves tied at 1-1 with Denver after losing a 16-point lead.
It wasn’t anything really new for the Nuggets, who rallied from double-digit deficits in three consecutive games against the Clippers to claim that series.
A Lakers win Tuesday night pretty much ends Denver’s comeback stories.
No team has ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.
The Lakers haven’t really slowed Denver stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray — has anybody? — but have done a commendable job on almost every other Nuggets player.
Starting guard Gary Harris is averaging only four points on 23 percent shooting while starting forward Paul Millsap has had minimal effect (5.5 points a game, 36 percent accuracy).
Davis was the All-Star with the biggest night in Game 2. Interestingly, he’d actually been avoiding three-pointers for a while and made only one in the previous four games.
Then he made a step-back three with 3:03 left to play and, of course, the infinitely more important one as time expired.