In his first start for Golden State since Dec. 7, JaMychal Green scored 15 points to spark the Warriors to a 127-100 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs on Thursday night.

At the Chase Center in San Francisco, the former Alabama forward shot 6-of-9 from the floor, including 3-of-6 on 3-pointers and had two assists and one rebound in 12:32 of court time.

During the NBA’s 2022-23 regular season, there were three games in which a player scored at least 15 points in fewer than 13 minutes on the floor. Green became the 12th player to accomplish that feat in an NBA playoff game since 1977.

“No. 1, I’m just proud of J-Mike,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said after the game. “It’s been a tough year for him for a lot of reasons. He missed some time with a few different ailments, and then when he was healthy, he was out of the rotation. I didn’t play him a whole lot. And he just stayed ready, and he took advantage of his opportunity.

“This seemed like a series for him just with the way the Lakers are playing us defensively, and couldn’t be happier for J-Mike. He’s really earned this by just staying positive and staying ready.”

The victory evened the Western Conference second-round series at one game apiece. The Lakers won the opener 117-112 on Tuesday night against the Warriors’ usual starting lineup.

Green started in place of Kevon Looney, who wasn’t feeling well.

“What happened was literally two hours before game time, Loon came down pretty ill,” Kerr said, “so I talked to Rick Celebrini (the Warriors’ director of sports medicine and performance), and he said Loon probably won’t be able to play more than 20 minutes or so given his illness. It’s tough to play a guy 20 minutes when you start him because then he ends up sitting forever and there’s kind of some awkward, lengthy periods on the bench and it’s hard to find a rhythm, so we decided to bring him off the bench. That would help his rhythm a little bit more. We could limit his minutes.

“We knew we were going to play JaMychal anyway, like we did in Game 1, so we just decided to start JaMychal and get the floor spacing that he offers. And J-Mike was great. He knocked down some threes, and he’s aggressive and athletic and, obviously, played a great game.”

Kerr said he chose to go with the 6-foot-8 Green instead of smaller options.

“The Lakers are huge. They’re a massive team,” Kerr said. “We felt like going into the game we had to bring some size and physicality, so when we heard about Loon, we thought about different options, starting smaller, but we decided on J-Mike because we could still get the spacing with his 3-point shooting ability, but we get a little bit more size and athleticism and some toughness. And we wanted to be more physical tonight, and he definitely brought that.”

In his first season with the Warriors, Green played an average of 14.0 minutes in 57 games, his lowest rate of playing time since his 24-game rookie season in 2014-15.

In Golden State’s first-round series, Green played in three of the seven games and did not score. In the series opener against the Lakers, Green had six points in 7:45 of court time.

“They always tell me to stay ready,” Green said. “They say they’ve seen this before and my time will come. Our first series, I was kind of struggling with it. But we had a team meeting, and Steph (Curry), he said some powerful words, and it kind of got me locked in. Let go of everything, and it’s just all about the team.”

During the regular season, Green started once. Thursday night’s scoring output tied for his second-highest of the season and was his best since he had 18 points in a 125-116 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on March 11.

In his 54th postseason game, Green tied his playoff scoring high. He also scored 15 points in Games 3 and 5 for the Los Angeles Clippers in a first-round series against the Warriors in 2019.

“JaMychal gave them big-time minutes,” Lakers star LeBron James said. “Those 12 minutes felt like 24 minutes, 30 minutes. He was a big-time player for the team in a starting role tonight.”

Green led St. Jude in Montgomery to AHSAA Class A championships in 2006 and 2008. He earned Alabama’s Mr. Basketball Award as a senior, when he also was a McDonald’s All-American.

At Alabama, Green was a first-team All-SEC selection as a junior and a second-team pick as a senior. In 123 games for the Crimson Tide, Green averaged 13.5 points and 7.4 rebounds in four seasons.

Almost three years after his final game at Alabama, Green made his way into the NBA on a series of three 10-day contracts in 2015 after playing overseas and in the NBA Development League. From there, he worked his way into the starting lineup for the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

Green joined the Los Angeles Clippers in a trade with the Grizzlies on Feb. 7, 2019, and he re-signed with the Clippers for the 2019-20 season. He joined the Denver Nuggets as a free agent in 2020.

In a draft-night trade in June, the Nuggets sent Green to the Oklahoma City Thunder. After taking an $8.2 million buyout of his 2022-23 contract, Green signed with the Warriors as a free agent.

In 544 NBA regular-season games, Green has averaged 7.7 points and 5.5 rebounds.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.