The Denver Nuggets ended their first game of the NBA Finals in 47 years on a Rocky Mountain high, while the Heat cooled like the Colorado temperatures that head south as the sun goes down behind those beloved mile-high peaks.
Yet, the Miami Heat that have surged so impressively from a play-in team that lost to the Atlanta Hawks and eked past the Chicago Bulls, were nothing more than a mirage last night as the Nuggets went up 1-0 in what looks like it might be a five game series at best.
The extended amount of time off seemed to benefit the preparation of the Nuggets for this roster’s first NBA Finals; the short turnaround for the Heat spelled disaster for the team’s seventh appearance in head coach Erik Spoelstra’s 15 year tenure.
And with the way that Nikola Jokic played last night, he’s flirting with joining the ranks of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and Hakeem Olajuwon as one of the greatest players to ever play the center position.
Jokic led the Nuggets to their first win of four necessary to win an NBA Championship with yet another triple double performance, netting 27 points, 14 assists, and 10 rebounds. Jokic had 10 assists in the first half, equaled only by LeBron James in 2017, who Jokic and the Nuggets just swept to get to these Finals.
Nikola Jokic looks like an MV3 – despite what Mark Jackson thinks – and no disrespect to Joel Embiid (but I still say they have ballot counting issues in the State of Pennsylvania).
He reminds me of a locomotive chugging through the Rocky Mountain passes like the Rocky Mountaineer that goes from Moab, Utah through Glenwood Springs, and into Denver.
Like if you crossed ‘The Little Engine That Could’ with ‘Unstoppable,’ but with the grace, humility, simplicity, and fluidity of 1977’s ‘Silver Streak.’
I dub him the Joki-Motive, myself … plenty of Joker … but even more motive.
(I’ll be here all night, tip your waiter).
In all seriousness, though, Shaquille O’Neal may have had a lot of self-anointed nicknames, but no one can argue against Jokic as ‘The Great Facilitator.’
When Jokic says he doesn’t “need to shoot or … score to affect the game,” he’s right
Jokic’s ability to defer to his teammates is what helped Denver dominate the Finals-experienced Heat. The Nuggets led 59-42 at halftime as Jokic got his team involved from the opening tip, making the 104-93 margin not as close as it appeared.
Miami played better in the second half, but it was too little too late, forcing Spoelstra to note that the Heat’s “efforts were more appropriate in the second half … it has to be for a full game.”
The Joker’s triple double made him the eighth player to have recorded one in Game One of an NBA Finals, but no one ever scored as high as 27 points until last night.
Jamal Murray, healthy and unstoppable in this year’s Nuggets run, finished with 26, six and 10 for Denver, while Michael Porter, Jr. compiled a nice 14 and 13 double double despite shooting 31.3 percent, and Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown added another (combined) 26 off the bench for the win.
After taking Game Seven (and much of the Eastern Conference Finals) against the Boston Celtics, Bam Adebayo led the Heat with a 26 point, 13 rebounds performance in the loss.
Adebayo shot a career high 25 shot attempts, making announcers for the Heat say Bam so much it almost became an Emeril Lagasse copyright infringement.
Wheeling Jesuit product Haywood Highsmith followed suit off the bench with 18 points on 70 percent shooting, while Gabe Vincent added 19 for the Heat.
Jimmy Butler only mustered 13 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, while Max Strus shot 0-for-10 (nine of those misses were from beyond the arc) and Caleb Martin was only one-for-seven, making the Heat’s Game Seven performance nothing more than a nice – albeit quickly fading – spot in the rearview mirror.
The way Butler had been powering the Heat through this post-season, you’d have thought the Butler-Murray matchup would have been more marquee; however, Butler allowed Murray to shoot 11-of-22 and two-of-seven from downtown, while only netting six-of-14 himself.
The Nuggets also went to the free throw line 20 times to Miami’s two. Yes, two. And we thought LeBron James got all the whistles, or at least that was the narrative in the Los Angeles Lakers-Golden State Warriors series.
One would have thought with the bad blood between these two teams from the Nikola Jokic-Markieff Morris fracas of 2021, and the ensuing Jokic Brothers intimidation, there might have been more fight from Miami.
Granted, I’m not encouraging any on-court violence, Morris has moved on to the Brooklyn Nets, and Butler says “that wasn’t my beef,” something has to motivate these Heat players to be something more than the stale popcorn, plastic beer cups, and ticket stubs swept from a 4-0 NBA Finals … because if that’s the case, they go down without much of a fight in front of their own fans at the Kaseya Center.
Miami’s only saving grace – if there is one – is that they’d lost the series opening game in their title runs in 2006, 2012, and 2013. They went up 1-0 in 2011, a series they eventually folded and lost to Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks.
Sunday’s forecast seems like it will be similar in Denver – a perfect day and afternoon, but comes a typical cool down after sunset … when Game Two tips off at Ball Arena.
Butler, Martin, and Vincent need to find a way to Heat it up if they don’t want the same fate as the Lakers at the hands of Jokic, Murray, and the Nuggets.
********************
Tracy Graven is the Senior NBA Analyst for BackSportsPage.com.
He has written the NBA, done NBA Radio, and appeared as a guest for the last 21+ years for HoopsWorld, Swish Magazine, HoopsHype, the Coach Scott Fields Show, NBARadioShow.com, and is also tackling the NFL, NCAA, and will be pinch-hitting on some Major League Baseball coverage for BackSportsPage.
He’s spent 21 years in locker rooms in Orlando, Boise (CBA, G League), San Antonio, Phoenix, Denver, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta.
A corporate trainer by day, he currently resides in SEC Country near Knoxville, Tennessee.
Reach him on Twitter at @RealTMoneyMedia
Featured Articles
Featured Writers
