The Miami Heat shocked the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 with a scintillating 111-108 come-from-behind win to even the 2023 NBA Finals. The game was a rollercoaster. Miami raced off to an early lead, then Denver swung back, controlled the second and third quarters, and took a lead that went as high as 15 points. But as they have shown all season, the Heat did not quit. Erik Spoelstra's team staged an unrelenting fourth-quarter comeback that saw them shoot a lights-out 68.8 percent from the field.
After a discouraging loss, Nikola Jokic and company certainly have some reflecting to do and get back on the drawing board to regain homecourt advantage. Nuggets head coach Michael Malone, in particular, wasn't too pleased with his team's effort.
“This is the NBA Finals and we're talking about effort,” Malone said in his post-Game 2 press conference. “That's a huge concern of mine.”
“Miami came in here and outworked and it was by far our least disciplined game of these 17 games. So many breakdowns, and they exploited every one of those breakdowns and scored.”
For sure, a coach of Malone's caliber will have something up his sleeve to counter Miami's adjustments in Game 2, which included inserting Kevin Love for defensive purposes and putting Jimmy Butler on Jamal Murray. With effort and discipline being the main culprits of their Game 2 loss, here are the four biggest adjustments Denver must make ahead of Game 3.
1. Simply play better
Well, this isn't really much of an adjustment. But that's been the sentiment around the Nuggets locker room in terms of what they lacked, not just in Game 2, but Game 1 as well. Michael Malone pointed to their lack of discipline in guarding Miami's complex offensive sets that involve a lot of ball and people movement, dribble handoffs, and pick-and-rolls.
Denver hasn't faced an opponent like Miami in these playoffs. Their previous opponents — the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, and Los Angeles Lakers — featured teams with top-heavy stars that they were able to focus on defensively. That is not the case with the Heat, which play just one brand of basketball — one that thrives on movement and involving everyone.
Take a look at this pull-up jumper from Gabe Vincent in the first quarter. Murray puts in lackadaisical effort on what really should've been an easy defensive coverage for the Nuggets. Vincent just simply went around Murray and got an open look in the mid-range.
This is likely just one of the effort plays Malone was talking about.
2. Take away Miami's wide-open looks
In connection with effort, Miami shot a ton of wide-open looks from long distance and they took advantage. Per NBA.com, the Heat had 30 “wide open” and “open” three-point shot attempts in Game 2. That means the Nuggets gave up just five non-open looks throughout the game. And unlike in Game 1, Miami took full advantage and converted 16 of them.
This was also the case in Game 1. Denver also gave up 30 “open” and “wide open” threes to Miami. But the Heat just failed to take advantage, making just 11 of them. Max Strus, who started off a house on fire in Game 2, went 0-of-5 in “wide open” looks in the series opener.
A lot of this has to do with both Miami executing their game plan to a tee and Denver not making the right reads and rotating accordingly. And for the most part, this boils down simply to making the effort to stick to their man and committing to contesting shots with actual intent.
3. Get Jimmy Butler off Jamal Murray
Erik Spoelstra made one of his first chess moves of the series by putting Jimmy Butler on Jamal Murray. While Murray finished with a double-double of 18 points and 10 assists, the Canadian didn't have much of a real impact in the game. Nikola Jokic carried the offensive load with 41 points on 16-of-28 shooting. Jokic had a usage rate of 40.3 percent in Game 2 to Murray's 19.0, which tells just how much Butler's defense really limited his offensive role on Sunday night.
Whether that involves getting into the two-man game with Jokic more, or forcing switches on the defense, they will need to get the spitfire guard more involved, the Nuggets will need to find a way to get Butler off Murray.
4. Don't make this the Nikola Jokic show
As terrific an offensive talent and scorer as Jokic is, the record has proven that when he is going off for a huge scoring game, the Nuggets don't play their best. Jokic has scored 40 points or more in this postseason. Yet, they have yet to win a game this postseason with their superstar center putting on a scoring clinic.
Nikola Jokic has scored 40+ points three times in these playoffs. Denver is 0-3 in those games. Nuggets have only lost four games all playoffs. They're at their best when everyone's cooking.
— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) June 5, 2023
It did seem like the Heat picked their poison by letting Jokic be a score-first player rather than the all-around facilitating big that won MVP two times over. Though Erik Spoelstra debugged that claim during his post-game press conference, that game plan did work for Miami.
In Game 2, Bruce Brown was the only non-Jokic player to have a usage rate of at least 20. That wasn't the case in Game 1, where the distribution of the offense was more distributed. Jokic had just a 23.6 usage rate, with nobody else on the team eclipsing 30.
Now, the ball is in Michael Malone's court to counter Miami's defensive adjustments to get everyone else involved in the offense.
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