The Heat Can Win at Sea Level or a Mile High

It took 10 tries, but an opposing team finally summited the mile-high mountain.

Through nine games and three-plus postseason rounds entering Sunday’s Finals Game 2, the Nuggets hadn’t lost a playoff game in Denver. As the no. 1 seed in the West, they’d leveraged their home-court advantage—the best in the sport—to take commanding series leads against the Timberwolves, Suns, and Lakers, and they’d coasted to a Game 1 victory against the Heat. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and all the Nuggets’ role players are special—but Denver’s altitude was their extra, unique advantage in these playoffs.

But if any team was to overcome that disadvantage, well, of course it would be the Miami Heat, who had already hurdled so many outrageous obstacles this spring. The eighth-seeded Heat upset the East’s no. 1 and no. 2 seeds, clinching both series on the road; of course they wouldn’t be daunted to compete in Denver.

“If Denver wants to tip off on Mount Everest, we’ll do that,” coach Erik Spoelstra said before the series began.

And in Game 2, his team backed up that bravado with the first road win in Denver all postseason. The Heat rallied from a 15-point deficit in the second quarter and an eight-point deficit entering the fourth to steal a 111-108 victory. Now, the Finals return to Miami tied at one game apiece, and, most importantly, the 1-versus-8 Finals are a truly competitive series.

With two days off between nearly every game in the Finals (only Games 3 and 4 are separated by a single day), both Spoelstra and Michael Malone have plenty of opportunities to react and adjust to each other’s strategies. Spoelstra’s fiddling before Game 2 was most apparent on the defensive end, where the Heat embraced a much more physical approach and held the non-Jokic Nuggets in check.

That adjustment meant Jokic, naturally, scored more points in Game 2: 41, versus 27 in Game 1. Yet the triple-double artist collected only four assists in Game 2 after dishing 14 in Game 1. For most of the night, his scoring was a solo effort—until midway through the fourth quarter, none of his teammates had cleared even 10 points in the game.

Jamal Murray finished with 18, thanks to a couple of late 3-pointers, but he didn’t make nearly the same impact as he did in Game 1, when he went for 26 points and 10 assists. In Game 2, Butler defended Murray much more—thanks to Spoelstra’s decision to return Kevin Love to the starting lineup, which permitted Love to guard Aaron Gordon and allowed Butler to shift onto the more dangerous Murray.

Love had fallen from the starting lineup to out of the rotation in the Eastern Conference finals because the slower big man couldn’t stick in front of Boston’s perimeter creators. But playoff rotations are all about matchups, and Love can guard Gordon with more bulk than his smaller Heat teammates. His presence helped diminish the size advantage Denver had wielded to such great effect in Game 1; the Heat were plus-18 in Love’s 22 minutes on Sunday.

Even with that adjustment, the Nuggets scored at a prolific clip in Game 2; their 126 points per 100 possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass, were higher than their overall postseason average and well above their Game 1 efficiency. But the Heat countered in kind as Spoelstra applied the crucial “make more shots” adjustment after the Heat sank only 33 percent of their 3-point attempts in their Game 1 loss. (And even that figure oversells Miami’s shooting impact in Game 1; a number of its makes came when the game was already out of hand in the fourth quarter.)

In Game 2, the Heat made 17 of their 35 3-point attempts, good for a 49 percent mark. Now, six of the top 11 single-game 3-point percentages in this postseason belong to Miami, which, it bears repeating for the umpteenth time, finished a distant 27th in 3-point percentage in the regular season and is now missing its top shooter (Tyler Herro) due to injury. The Heat are 6-0 in those games.

Highest Single-Game 3-Point Percentages This Postseason

Some of Miami’s offensive success in Game 2 stemmed from a return to form after an aberrant first game in the Finals. Most notably, Max Strus had put up a goose egg in Game 1, missing all 10 of his shot attempts (nine from deep), but he bounced back with four 3-point makes in the first quarter of Game 2.

Strus didn’t hit any other 3s the rest of the night, but his hot start presaged a potent night from deep for the rest of Miami’s roster. Love and Butler each hit a pair of 3s. So did Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson off the bench. Gabe Vincent, en route to a hefty paycheck in free agency this summer, canned four 3s and led the Heat with 23 points.

Thus, Miami’s profitable game of role player roulette rolls on. Caleb Martin was a hero in the Eastern Conference finals; he has six points in two Finals games while returning to the bench—but other role players have stepped up in his place.

The Nuggets also paved the way for more Heat points with defensive mishaps, which led to a few wide-open makes. Simultaneously blame Denver’s defenders for miscommunicating and credit Miami’s offensive system for creating confusion. One particularly representative bit of wizardry came early in the fourth quarter as a Robinson rally swung the lead from the home team to the visitors.

As Bam Adebayo held the ball near the top of the key, Robinson curled off a Vincent screen in the left corner. Over Miami’s last three possessions entering this play, Robinson had connected on a pair of 3-pointers and a driving layup, so Denver was reasonably concerned about his cut, and both Bruce Brown and Christian Braun stuck with him. The result was an open Vincent 3 to give Miami the lead.

On the very next possession, Miami ran the same screening action in the corner—but this time, having learned their lesson, the Nuggets kept one defender with Vincent and sent only Braun to chase after Robinson. But the rookie was a step slow navigating the pick, which gave Adebayo an easy pass to the cutting Robinson for a layup. An eminently memeable mean mug ensued.

Note the passer on both of those buckets, because Adebayo was tremendous on both ends in Game 2, especially as he traded fewer shots (14 attempts in Game 2, versus a career-high 25 in Game 1) for more facilitation. The Nuggets haven’t yet figured out how to combat Adebayo’s playmaking from the high post—ironic, given how much they rely on Jokic to do the same for them—and the Heat seemed to generate good looks whenever their center served as their offensive hub.

That means, of course, that it’s Malone’s turn to adjust, and it’s time for the Nuggets to show they can steal a road win too. But now they need to win away from home, whereas before they could have won a title just by remaining undefeated in Denver. The Heat ruined that plan—as they have so often against so many other favorites throughout this magical postseason run.