The Miami Heat made a handful of adjustments that played out perfectly in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. The first one visible, before the game even tipped off, was reinserting Kevin Love into the starting lineup.
The box score may not look all that spectacular for the Heat veteran. Love finished with just six points on two made three-pointers. But his size and physicality were palpable in place of Caleb Martin, grabbing 10 rebounds and just proving to be a much more worthy adversary to the big-bodied Aaron Gordon.
Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke out on the move, particularly after sitting Kevin Love for the entirety of Game 1, via The Athletic's Joe Vardon:
“I didn’t have the foresight (to start Love in Game 1), I didn’t,” Spoelstra said. “That’s on me.”
Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets appeared to throw their weight around in their NBA Finals Game 1 win, both literally and figuratively. Love's 22 minutes in Game 2 helped set the tone that the Heat weren't going to just let it happen again. They were going to push back.
“We had to make an adjustment in that Boston series and that really was necessary and it worked,” Erik Spoelstra said. “Then we’re facing a new opponent that we don’t really know, and so we just went with what finished that previous series. But we have been 10-4, 11-4 now with this lineup. Clearly, we needed that size and veteran experience and physicality that K-Love brings.”
The best NBA Finals series are often a chess match between coaches, with one making an adjustment to counter the other in the following game. The Kevin Love piece on the board will be an interesting one to watch out for in Game 3.
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