The NBA Finals features two teams that weren’t expected to get this far.
the Miami HeatBecause they only won 44 games in the regular season, lost their first game and were three minutes behind in the second before coming back against the Chicago Bulls, earning the eighth seed and starting one of the most unprecedented playoff games in league history.
and the Denver NuggetsBecause while they were absolutely supposed to be here—they were the number one seed in the West—as a franchise they had never made the Finals, and all season long there was doubt that the Nuggets could translate regular season success. Instead, they only needed 15 chances to win 12 games and sweep the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
They wasted no time showing that they meant to work on the first game. They jumped out to an early lead and pushed it to 24 points during the third quarter. The Heat kept things interesting as they used an 11-0 lead to start the fourth quarter — sparked by a pair of threes by longtime friend Kyle Lowry — and cut the Nuggets’ lead to 10. Jokic put Denver back on the board with a. Brilliant pass to cut Jeff Green. The Heat managed to come close to nine on a triple by Haywood Highsmith with 2:34 to play, but that came as close as their 104-93 win gave Denver a 1-0 series lead and improved them 9-0 at home during the postseason. season. Denver shot 51.9 percent from the floor and had 29 assists, even while shooting only 8 of 27 from three. Miami shot 40.6 percent from land and 33.3 percent from depth. Nikola Jokic He finished with 27 points, 14 assists, and 10 rebounds Jamal Murray He had 26 points and 10 assists. Heat was led by Bam Adebayo who finished with 26 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists.
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Takeaways from Game 1:
Of course Jamal Murray was excluded
before the finals I had a chance to talk with Some of the Kitchener Kid’s coaches from early in his playing career have been unanimous: The man who elevated his game in the NBA playoffs is the same player who rose to the occasion for so many defining moments as a young player working his way up. So it’s no surprise that Murray is locked in and ready for the NBA Finals game, given that he averaged 27.7 points a game on nearly 60 percent true shooting in the playoffs. It is extremely rare for a high-volume scorer to improve his scoring average by 7.7 points over his regular season average (20.0 for Murray) and actually improve his efficiency. Murray was at it again against Miami, yo-yoing in a two-on-one with Jokic, controlling the entire game while doing so, or floating around in the open as the Heat watched the Nuggets center, only to find the Nuggets’ second. A leading scorer wide open.
Murray had 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting to go along with four assists and four rebounds in the first half. Nobody was surprised. said Michael Malone, Nuggets coach, with some prescience, before the tip. “I think in these 15 games that we’ve played in the postseason, I think we’ve seen it multiple times each round. Teams think they kind of figured it out or an individual defender might think they figured it out, and then Jamal would go into the fourth quarter with a 23-point lead.” Or score 30 points in the first half, whatever it is. I have every confidence in the world that Jamal will be ready for this stage.” Malone was right, but he wasn’t having a problem. This is what Murray does.
Jokic does his magic (Johnson)
It is impossible to properly defend someone who can rob your team without scoring goals. Nikola Jokic didn’t take a snap during the first quarter. It wasn’t because of anything The Heat was doing – they just stood up for him directly, for the most part. It was more so because the great Serbian basketball genius was in the mood to move the ball around and make easy looks for his teammates. He had six assists in the first quarter and did not score until 3.3 seconds left in the opening period. It just so happened that Jokic stole the ball and it ended up in the hands of Aaron Gordon who quickly got it back to Jokic for the score. Leading 29-20 after 12 minutes, Denver was shooting 1-of-6 from downtown but connected on 12 of 16 of their two-point attempts. Jokic had his fingerprints on everything. If he wasn’t playing plays that led directly to easy buckets for his teammates, the attention he demanded created easy mismatches, like the 6-foot-8 putts. . The Nuggets led 59-42 at halftime and Jokic had 10 assists in 19 minutes to go up to 10 points on three shots. Just silly.
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No heat from three
A season earlier, the Miami Heat had been the top seed in the Eastern Conference before losing their chance to advance to the Finals after a seven-game series to the Boston Celtics. They led the NBA in three-point percentage. Last season, they barely made it to the postseason — with pretty much the same roster — they were 27-year-olds.yin three points. But then the playoffs started, and the Heat were back up to last season’s level as they were leading the playoffs in three-point shooting. In a related story, they were the second No. 8 seed to reach the Finals in NBA history, and the first after a full 82-game season. The Heat were trailing 84-63 to start the fourth quarter and were shooting 7 of 27 only from three. How did they make the game fun? They shot 6 of 12 from deep in the fourth quarter (to an 0-8 lead from Denver). They’re going to need a lot more of that to make this series enjoyable.
A comprehensive team effort
You kind of knew the Heat would be hard-pressed to come back when they doubled Gokic late in the third quarter before Murray could get in. Jokic had a defender in front of him and hid behind him. There was nowhere to put the ball. Murray shrugged and passed the ball to a wide-open Bruce Brown who hit his second triple-goal of the game — both looking wide open from Jokic’s double — to put the Nuggets ahead 79-60 with 2:51 left. the third. The story of the game was, even though the Denver Stars were having huge games themselves, the Nuggets “role players” stepped up. Michael Porter Jr. had some great assists defensively, grabbed 13 rebounds and scored 14 points. Gordon dominated early and had 16 points on 10 shots then Brown and a great stretch in the third quarter. Team Nuggets.
Well, it’s not perfect
The gap in Jokic’s perfect basketball skill set is that he is simply not a very good defender. He tries to be in the right spot most of the time and is an excellent defensive renegade, so the Nuggets finish possessions well, and there is no better grab-and-go center than Jokic. But defending the edge or defending individually is not his forte. The Nuggets are third from last in the NBA in opponent field goal percentage in the restricted area. So it’s no wonder Heat center Adebayo looked like he could score on Thursday night. The Nuggets were determined to stay home on the Heat shooters, leaving Jokic to defend Adebayo in space. Agile Heat seized the opportunity.
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