The Miami Heat won Game Two of the NBA Finals; Game Three is just around the corner; can Erik Spoelstra's team emerge as victors in South Florida, or will Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray return to put a sting in the tale?; find out with Sky Sports on Thursday June 8 from 1:30am.
Wednesday 7 June 2023 23:48, UK
The Miami Heat won Game Two of the NBA Finals; Game Three is just around the corner; can Erik Spoelstra's team emerge as victors in South Florida, or will Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray return to put a sting in the tale?; find out with Sky Sports on Thursday June 8 from 1:30am.
Ahead of the big game at the Kaseya Center, we take a look at the key talking points.
Most teams will have faltered at the prospect of travelling to Denver and playing 5,280 feet above sea level. But on Monday, the circumstances lined up against the hosts.
Indeed, the Nuggets lost their first home game in 66 days, and their opponents rallied with the knowledge that although they suffered defeat in the opening matchup of the series, they'd gained something crucial from it: time to acclimatise to the conditions.
That's precisely what Erik Spoelstra's side looked to do six days ago in the immediate aftermath of the Conference finals victory over the Boston Celtics. Against the advice of that suggested overnight in a local hotel, the players traded a comfy double bed for a pressurised cabin and got an extra 10 hours of prep time in the 'Mile High City.'
While it didn't come to fruition the first time of asking, Game Two's victory proved that their opponents were not infallible.
The Heat did it by sharing the points. Gabe Vincent scored 23 points, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo both racked up 21, and Duncan Robinson came off the bench for a crucial fourth-quarter stint.
In doing so, they did something LeBron James, Anthony Edwards, Kevin Durant, and Devin Booker couldn't do and won in a high-altitude setting.
The Heat, trailing in the final play-in game with three minutes left all those months ago, are now three wins away from one of the most notable titles in American sporting history, and Denver no longer hold the upper hand.
The top-seeded Nuggets are 0-3 this postseason when Jokic scores 40 points or more. But this time around, while the Serbian international was his usual suave self, his team-mates were absent, despite taking an eight-point advantage into the fourth quarter.
Where did it all go wrong? Well, every other starter failed to deliver, primarily because the Heat forced the former two-time MVP winner to adopt a scoring position rather than the passing role that led to a smattering of points across the board in Game One.
Michael Porter Jr scored a dismal five points, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had as many points - six - as he had fouls, and Jamal Murray's 18-point performance snapped his streak of six straight playoff games of scoring 25 or more.
On top of that, the Nuggets allowed 17 three-pointers, including four from Max Strus, who scored 14 points after his 0-10 goose egg in the opener.
Head coach Michael Malone did not mince his words when discussing his team's concerning defensive display.
"To me, the wheels really fell off to start that fourth quarter," Malone explained. "They were getting whatever they wanted, threes, layups, and that allowed them once again to sit back in their zone offence, slow the game down, and we had a hard time getting stops."
His players must recover it in Game Three. And they must also realize that Jokic, for all his greatness, is no solo act.
The Heat have been in this position before.
Cast your minds back to 2012, when Miami lost Game One in Oklahoma City by 11 points - just like Thursday's margin - and won the next four games to secure their second championship ring.
A season later, Miami rallied after a Game One loss to beat the San Antonio Spurs in a seven-game classic; the series was highlighted by Ray Allen's game-tying, season-saving three-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in Game Six.
With Game Two in the bag, history points to more success on the cards for Spo' and his players, but will Denver return to spoil the party?
Miami couldn't have been any more woeful on Thursday, but they picked apart the Denver defence one game later with calculated ease.
Gabe Vincent was at the heart of the attack, flanked by Butler, Adebayo, and the prolific Robinson.
While Vincent's job was to attract the entire Nugget's defence, Robinson kept finding gaps within the passing lanes to net two-pointers.
The Nuggets then attempted to switch formation to cover the court, but once again, Robinson found a corner to occupy and shoot from.
In doing this dance across their opposition's defence, Miami were able to cause what Jokic labelled as several "miscommunications" and "misunderstandings."
This is exactly where the brunt of the Heat's three-pointers came from: faking shots, shifting attention, and then finding empty spaces for Vincent and Adebayo to hit from deep.
Pick, roll, shoot, rinse, and repeat. Can Malone work on his strategy, or will the Heat know how to seal the series?
