The Miami Heat have a huge matchup to say the least Wednesday night as they have another NBA Finals rematch against the Denver Nuggets, this time inside the Kaseya Center. On Feb. 29, the Nuggets would get another one on the Heat, but now they look for revenge as star Jaime Jaquez Jr. talks about what he learned when facing the Western Conference powerhouse.
While fans of the team and Miami themselves know the Nuggets very well because of the aforementioned championship series, it was Jaquez's first time playing them late last month. The rookie out of UCLA had a confident response when asked what he learned about his own team after facing Denver since the game was a close one according to Adam Lichtenstein of The Sun Sentinel.
“What I learned about the team (from an earlier loss to Denver) is we have a great connectivity,” Jaquez said. “Unfortunately, we lost that game, but we know that we’re close to getting over that hump. I think that’s the one thing we learned, especially after these last coupe of weeks, is that we’re very close to getting over that hump. … We’ve got great guys, we’ve got great continuity. At times like this, instead of pulling away, we really come close together.”
Jaquez talks about second matchup as Heat face the Nuggets
There is no doubt that the Nuggets have all the tools to go back to the Finals and win another championship as the dynamic duo of Jamal Murray and arguably the best player in the league in Nikola Jokic lead them. Besides them, they're a well-oiled machine that has very few flaws as Jaquez said that “there's a lot we have to do” to “slow them down.”
“They’re a good team,” Jaquez said. “There’s a lot we have to do to try to slow them down. I thought we did a great job of slowing them down. Offensively, there’s some things that we could’ve done better. … I think we’re going to be much better prepared this time around.”
The Heat will need all the firepower they need to take down the Nuggets as the team will still be without integral pieces like Tyler Herro and Kevin Love. Besides the main stars, Jaquez will be important for the Heat's success Wednesday night as in the last matchup, he only scored three points while collecting four rebounds and five assists.
After practice Tuesday, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra spoke about the Nuggets and how he credits them for taking control over contests “in those key moments of games.” Just recently, Denver came back after trailing at halftime to the Toronto Raptors as Spoelstra called them a “championship-caliber team.”
“What they know how to do is, in those key moments of games, how to take control,” Spoelstra said. “A lot of times, that ends up being end of quarter, end of half or the swing moments in the second half — the real pivotal skirmishes as Pat (Riley) likes to call them. They tend to know how to win those. That’s usually what championship-caliber teams, teams that are coming off of a title run, (do). They may not play that most consistent basketball all the way through the regular season, but in those pockets, they know how to win those moments and ultimately, that helps them just win games, even if they’re not playing at that super-highest level that they can get to, which they can.”
“They can get to that level, and they did that to us in Denver, and we obviously saw that (Monday),” Spoelstra continued. “Even right before we played them, they had some similar games like that where they were down and then just turned the games around and they were fully in control in the second half.”
At this point of the season, every game matters as the Heat are trying to solidify position in a tightly packed Eastern Conference as they are 35-29 which puts them eighth. After the disappointing loss to the Washington Wizards last Sunday, Miami is looking to snap a three-game skid.
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