It was another frustrating night for the Miami Heat as they extended their losing streak to four games after they were defeated by the Denver Nuggets Wednesday, 100-88. The team was going through a major turnaround after the seven-game losing skid earlier in the year, but have now fallen in the standings after another disappointing outing as Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke about what went wrong in the matchup.
Obviously, it was never going to be an easy task in taking down the reigning, defending NBA champions as they are led by stars such as Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and a strong supporting cast, but it was a close game throughout. Especially in the third quarter where the Heat made it interesting and even took the lead at one point.
Spoelstra talks the Nuggets gaining back control over the Heat
However, the fourth quarter came around and Miami slowed down while Denver didn't take their foot off the gas pedal. There has been a countless amount of situations where the Nuggets find a way to control a game and play much better in the final period as Spoelstra mentioned, which has been the opposite for the Heat throughout the season.
“Then they do what they've done a lot this year,” Spoelstra said. “They've had quite a few of these games where they've been in the balance and then when they want to put on the Jets they've been able to leave teams behind the dust and that's what it felt like tonight.
“It felt like they just flipped the switch in those last four minutes, Jackson was a big part of it, Murray was on the bench, and they're basically running those those typical two main actions that they run with Murray and Jokic, but they didn't know what Jackson you know, he was doing his best facsimile of Murray,” Spoelstra continued. “Then at that point, it just created enough juice and separation that they have that extra kick down the stretch and clearly it was a struggle for us to score. We have moments and and that's fine actually if we kept it in the mud. But they had their burst and then we stayed where we were, and and it was basically it.”
Spoelstra on Heat's struggles from the three-point line
Part of the loss can be looked towards the Heat's shooting from three-point range, which has usually been a strength of the team in recent years. Against the Nuggets however, they only made five shots from deep out of 21 attempts which Spoelstra talks about how Denver takes teams away from the three-point line and says that “we passed up open ones and then drove it in to their size.”
“That is what they do. To me, it felt like we passed up some open threes, I don’t think it would have been 43 attempts,” Spoelstra said. “But certainly, it should have been 10, 12 more. We passed up open ones and then drove it in to their size. If you pass up some open ones, you're not going to get a better one and there were definitely probably half dozen of those where we end up getting a worst shot by passing up one.
“And that also keeps the defense honest, you have to work on different aspects of your offense and we weren't necessarily able to do that tonight and that's a credit to Denver,” Spoelstra continued. “They're one of the more underrated defensive teams and since all star break that kind of turned it on on that side of the floor. So we couldn't get into our normal rhythm, but we certainly needed to take a take a few more.”
No room for error for the Heat going forward
Including games in the NBA Finals last June, the Heat have been close against the Nuggets, but have ended up losing like the two matchups this season. While it was always going to be hard to take down the Nuggets, the Heat have no room for error at this point of the season with 17 games left.
Miami is 35-30 at the current moment which puts them eighth in the Eastern Conference. They now start a four-game road trip starting with two straight contests against the Detroit Pistons starting Friday.
Follow Us
Subscribe