After dominating on both ends of the floor during Thursday's Game 1, the Denver Nuggets plummeted back down to earth Sunday evening, as they were bested by the Miami Heat by a final score of 111-108. With this, Erik Spoelstra's squad heads back down to South Beach with the series all knotted up at 1-1. Though the loss on their home court may be a bit demoralizing, superstar big Nikola Jokic seems to understand why this came to be, and believes there's one key tweak that his club should hone in on.
During his post-game media session, the two-time MVP discussed how even in the opening night triumph, things still didn't run all that smoothly for the Nuggets, though they managed to stave off falling into Miami's “rhythm.” Jokic suggests that picking up the tempo of play heading into Game 3 could help his team get back on track.
“The first game I think I said I missed mid-range shots, Jamal [Murray] missed mid-range shots, and [Michael Porter Jr.] missed corner threes. I think those are the shots that we want [but] we didn't make them. And today, they just put us in their rhythm and we don't want to play that way, they want to obviously. But maybe just to play a little bit faster is going to help us,” Nikola Jokic said.
Despite the loss for the Nuggets, Nikola Jokic once again had himself a tremendous showing from an individual perspective. Registering just shy of 42 minutes of play, the center posted 41 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists while shooting 57.1% from the field and 40.0% from deep.