By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Miami Heat president Pat Riley gave credit to the Los Angeles Lakers for beating his team in the 2020 NBA Finals while adding that this win will always carry an “asterisk” due to the injuries of Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo.
“They beat us fair and squarely. But there will be always be that asterisk; if we had Bam and Goran 100 percent — Goran was our leading scorer [entering the Finals] — it might have gone to a seventh game,” Riley said per the Miami Herald.
He also noted later on that there shouldn’t be anything taken away from the Lakers: “The asterisk is next to the Heat’s name, not the Lakers. Their title is legitimate. Our loss has an asterisk (next) to it. The Lakers were the better team. Period,” per Tim Reynolds.
Dragic’s injury was a major blow for the Heat, especially considering the postseason that the player was having. The Slovenian guard was the second-best scorer and passer of the Heat in the playoffs and instrumental in the team making the Finals for the first time since 2013.
It was Dragic’s first-ever trip to the NBA championship series but an injury in the first half of Game 1 didn’t allow him to compete. He was forced to stay out in most of the remaining matches and just played 17 minutes in Game 6.