The path to the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals has been a story of contrasts for the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat, and the contrasting stories have continued into the first two games of the series.

The Nuggets finished the regular season as the top seed in the Western Conference and made quick work of their Western Conference Finals, after dispatching the Los Angeles Lakers in four games — the first sweep in the history of the Denver franchise — and booked their ticket to the last lap for the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Contrastively, the Heat have done the unthinkable by taking the longest route to the play-offs, losing their first Play-In Tournament game to the Atlanta Hawks, then had to overcome a big fourth-quarter deficit against the Chicago Bulls, to edge into the play-offs as the eighth seed.

Having bettered the NBA’s top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and then the New York Knicks in five and six games, respectively, it took Miami seven games to overcome the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, making them just the second No 8 seed in NBA history to appear in the finals and the first team in the Play-In era to advance to this stage.

Game 1 of the Finals tipped off last week Thursday (June 1) in Denver and while the Nuggets were operating like a well-oiled machine, the `team appeared to be going through the motions, and having started every series on the road, tasted a Game 1 defeat for the first time this post-season. Nikola Jokic registered a triple-double (his ninth of these play-offs) and Jamal Murray scored 26 points on the way to a 104-93 victory, as Jimmy Butler (who scored just 13 points, his lowest of this post-season) and Co experienced a bout of cold-shooting.

Jokic finished with 27 points, 14 assists and 10 rebounds, and became the second player in the last 25 years to have 10 assists by half-time of a finals game — LeBron James was the other, in 2017. Murray amassed 10 assists to go along with his points total, making him and Jokic just the second pair of teammates to have at least 25 points and 10 assists each in an NBA Finals game, joining the legendary pair of Magic Johnson and James Worthy (1987). Denver trailed for only 34 seconds during the game and led by as much as 24 points, driven by a complete and efficient team effort — Aaron Gordon added 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting (setting the tone with 12 in the first quarter) and Michael Porter Jr scored 14 and had 13 rebounds.

Despite a spirited 11-0 run to open the fourth quarter to cut an 84-63 deficit down to 84-74, the closest Miami got was within nine points, and the damage could have easily been so much worse. Denver had its second-worst three-point shooting performance of the play-offs, hitting 29.6 per cent (only their 25.9 per cent in Game 2 against the Phoenix Suns was worse). Murray and Porter, Denver’s two leading three-point shooters in the regular season, were a combined 4-for-18.

One surprising statistic from the game was the stark disparity in free throws. Miami attempted (and hit) just two shots from the line for the entire game, an NBA post-season record, while Denver hit 16-of-20. Miami fell to 1-6 all-time in the first game of the NBA Finals, but history is on their side as they also lost the series opener every year that they won the title — 2006, 2012 and 2013 — and their only Game 1 Finals win came in 2011, a series they eventually lost to the Dallas Mavericks.

A combination of Denver’s stout defence and Miami’s terrible shooting was the storyline of Game 1 — at least for the first three quarters — and the role players who carried Miami to a Game 7 victory over the Celtics, missed shot after shot — Max Strus went 0-for-10, missing nine three-pointers, Duncan Robinson went 1-for-6 and Caleb Martin went 1-for-7 and was benched for the entire fourth quarter. However, the Heat, the best three-point shooting team in the league this post-season, showed up and showed off in Game 2 last Sunday (June 4).

The first three quarters played out eerily like the first game of the series and, entering the final quarter, it appeared that Denver was en route to another convincing victory and a 2–0 series lead. Miami got out to an early 21–10 lead midway through the first quarter, but Denver responded with a 40–14 run over the next 12 minutes to build a convincing lead. Jokic’s 18-point third quarter created the sense that Denver was in cruise control heading into the final period, leading 83–75. Then came the nose-dive.

Miami started the fourth quarter on a 29–10 run to take a 104–93 lead, and never looked back. Robinson, who struggled offensively in Game 1, flipped the switch and led Miami with 10 fourth quarter points, all of which came as Miami began the quarter on a 15–2 run to take hold of the game. And Strus, after coming up empty to begin the series, hit four of his 10 three-pointers on Sunday.The Heat shot a disappointing 13-of-39 from the three-point arc in Game 1, then returned with a scorching 17-of-35 performance in Game 2, outscoring the Nuggets by 18 points from three-point range.

Denver managed to cut the Game 2 deficit to three points with about a minute to play (108-111), and Murray had a good look at a three-pointer that would have sent the game into overtime, but it was not to be, and the subsequent loss was the first at home for the Nuggets since March 30.

Defensively, Miami mitigated the passing ability of Jokic who, despite scoring 41 points (his most since he dropped 53 in Game 4 against the Suns), was limited to only four assists, his fewest this post-season, and he turned the ball over five times. Jokic padding his scoring stats and not ‘dropping dimes’ has been a recipe for disaster for the Nuggets, as they are 0-3 in these play-offs when he scores 40 points or more.

The Heat stole Game 2 by a whisker, clutched onto homecourt advantage and shapeshifted the series into a best of five. The Nuggets undoubtedly have more talent on their roster than the Heat, including a two-time Most Valuable Player (MVP), but Miami didn’t defy the odds to get here, only to go away quietly in the night…… Game on!

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