DENVER — Kevin Love’s wife Kate gave birth to the couple’s first child over the weekend. Love, the Miami Heat forward, didn’t travel with the organization to Denver for Game 5 of the NBA Finals so he could attend his daughter, but he did fly alone late Saturday night to join the Heat and resume. His effort to be part of only the second team in history to come from a 3-1 deficit to win the Finals.
“When you have a special moment like that, you’re obviously very happy no matter what situation you’re in,” said thermostat Pam Adebayo about love. “To see the joy on his face at having his baby, his wife obviously healthy and everyone healthy all the time, that’s the blessing you get. That’s the blessing he probably needed. This is great news for all of us that we may have needed.”
Life does indeed go on, even while history hangs over the heads of both teams. The Nuggets are looking for their first NBA title in the league’s 47 seasons, and they’ve only lost once since the Western Conference mid-finals when they were tied 2-2 with the Phoenix Suns.
Denver is at home, losing only once this postseason (to Miami in Game 2) and can celebrate in unparalleled euphoria with its fans.
The Heat, who seem to thrive when the odds are taller and their end in plain sight, will be the first No. 8 seed to win the NBA Finals. But they are three wins away, while the next Nuggets victory will wrap it all up and send us into another season. Game 5 at 8:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
“My biggest concern going into a close game is human nature and fighting that,” Denver coach Michael Malone said. “You go 3-1. Most teams, when you go 3-1, they come for the air. They relax and take it for granted, ‘Oh, we’re going to win this.'”
“The cool thing for us is we’re back in the bubble, we were down 3-1. We’re back and we won. We know anything is possible. That’s why my message to our team before we came to the media and open practice was our approach was we have to be down 3 -1”.
This is the Nuggets’ first appearance in the Finals and through four games, it looks like they’ve been there forever. Two-time Regular Season MVP Nikola Jokic is on pace to win Finals MVP honors with averages of 30.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and 8.0 assists.
Jokic’s team hasn’t been a big factor in the playoffs in either MVP season due to a devastating knee injury to Jamal Murray, who didn’t play in the 2021 or 2022 playoffs and now averages 23.3 points and 10.5 assists in the Finals. Michael Porter Jr., the 6-foot-10 Nuggets winger, missed last year’s postseason due to a back injury.
The Nuggets are healthy now, and have barely been challenged so far in this current race. They eliminated Minnesota in a noble sweep, took control of the Suns after Phoenix tied the series, swept the Lakers, and now they can eliminate the Heat in five games.
“It wasn’t long before we got here that I thought it was going to happen,” Murray said. “I had the belief that I was in the playoffs before, that I had the experience, that I saw the team and the chemistry grow, that it had the same essence as my career, and that’s when I saw it. That’s when I believed it.
That I’m here is just kind of an approximation and shows that when the right conditions are given and everyone is healthy, God willing, we can do it. I think when we’re playing our best basketball, we’re a very tough team to stop.”
The only player on the Nuggets roster with a ring is Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who won with the Lakers in 2020 and was added to Denver’s roster last summer. He said, “We can be too excited or it can’t go the way we want it to.
“Tomorrow for us,” said Caldwell-Pope, “must only relax and compose, but enjoy the moment and enjoy it.” “Just come play basketball how we’ve been playing this whole game and this series.”
The Heat has two players — Love and Udonis Haslem, the 15th man and vet of 20 years on the team — winning championships. Erik Spoelstra has won twice as head coach.
Calling his team “gnarly” and predicting a Game 5 “gnarly,” Spoelstra said Sunday that the Heat are “a very stubborn and challenging bunch, and I think it’s good to have a little bit of a challenge from time to time.”
“We’ve used that term before, you wild competitors,” Spoelstra said. “They love the ultimate challenges and the ultimate competition. Some of the fiercest fights were back in training camp when we were sparring and splitting teams. We could hardly get through these full contact practices without everyone yelling at each other, yelling at the coaches in charge, and arguing about results. It’s that level of Intensity when they play and compete to get a score.
“Everyone is preparing us,” Spoelstra added. “We’re used to it. But in the end it has to be decided between those four lines. The crowd won’t decide that. The narratives won’t decide that. Whatever the analytics about 3-1, it won’t decide. It will be decided between those four lines, that can Her game is up to her game and winning in the end in the end. That’s what our guys love.”
Analytics, no, it’s not on Miami’s side. Only one of the 36 teams from 3-1 in the NBA Finals came back to win it, and that was the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers. Only 13 teams have recovered from this type of deficit in any NBA playoff run.
Adebayo is the Heat’s leading scorer so far in this series (22.3 points, 12.3 boards), while Jimmy Butler struggled in shooting (21.8 points, 446 shooting percentage). In their two losses, Miami got very little from starting guards Gabe Vincent and Max Stross.
Spoelstra said Tyler Hero, the No. 2 starting guard all season who broke his hand in the Heat’s game opener, wasn’t cleared back until Sunday afternoon, even though he was scheduled to participate in Sunday’s practice.
The Heat have a history of winning games that count, dating back to the 2020 Finals when, trailing the Lakers 3-1, Butler scored a career-high 35 triple-double points in a win to extend the series.
Facing elimination in the 2022 Conference Finals, Butler landed the Celtics 47 in Game 6 in Boston to force a Game 7. The Heat was losing in the fourth quarter of the Play-In finale in April, and Butler led with several wins in the tournament. Turned Milwaukee in the first round.
Butler said his belief that the Heat could do it “is at an all-time high”.
“At the beginning of this year, we talked about winning a championship, and competing to get to this point,” said Butler. “So that’s always the goal. It’s always a goal with the Heat. It’s about winning. It’s not about anything individual. It’s about collectively carrying that trophy as a unit, to be the best team.”
“This is where we are,” Butler continued. “All odds, 8-seed, dadada, nah, none of that matters. They’re just two good basketball teams. One has to get one win, and one has to get three. Let’s just hope the other one gets to get the one that should get Three, on three.”
(Photo: Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)