![]() ![]() But as the Lakers discovered after they temporarily slowed down Jokic by putting Rui Hachimura on the center to allow Davis to roam, finding a way to stop Jokic in a series might be next to impossible. Spoelstra might be in the midst of his best coaching job yet. (And that was without having to deal with Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Draymond Green told ESPN after the Warriors beat the Nuggets in the first round last year that "every possession was a chess match" and trying to outwit Jokic in the postseason is matched only by trying to beat LeBron in an NBA Finals. Trying to match wits with Jokic and slow him down is the greatest challenge in the NBA right now. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra will have to find a way to do what Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, LeBron and Anthony Davis were unable to do - stop The Joker. Jokic is four wins away from doing that and the only thing standing in his way is Butler and the Heat. He is focused on lifting one piece of hardware, and that's the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Not long after he collected his first Western Conference finals MVP trophy, Jokic said he doesn't think about winning MVP trophies. ![]() So there's every reason to think rest will be a huge benefit for the Nuggets. More importantly, teams with both home-court advantage and a rest edge of at least five days going in are 8-1 all-time in the Finals, with the only series loss coming by the 1998 Utah Jazz against the "Last Dance" Chicago Bulls. 763 winning percentage for Game 1 hosts (58-18). When teams with that large a rest edge have been at home for Game 1 of the Finals, they're 8-1 (.889) - far better than the overall. Teams like Denver with at least a five-day rest advantage heading into the Finals have gone 10-6 (.625) in the opening game, but that might understate how well they've done. I wanted to make sure we got up and down, conditioned." "You're playing every other day for so long, and now all of a sudden you have an eight-, nine-, 10-day break, whatever it is. "For us, my biggest concern is the rhythm but more importantly conditioning," Malone told reporters Friday as the team returned to practice. Still, Nuggets coach Michael Malone isn't convinced that's an advantage. (The 2013 San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors in 20 also had 10-day breaks after sweeping.)īecause Boston was able to come back from a 3-0 deficit to force a Game 7, Denver will have seven more days of rest than Miami. a little too rested?īy the time Game 1 tips off Thursday at Ball Arena, the Nuggets will have been off for 10 days, just the fourth time in the past two decades a team has gotten that long a break before the Finals. ![]() MORE: Finals schedule and news | Title odds Now, the two teams will face off for a title, and our experts are breaking down the biggest questions ahead of one of the most surprising NBA Finals matchups in league history. Since that loss, the Heat have gone 13-6 in the postseason, capped off by a Game 7 rout of the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. Meanwhile, Miami was not expected to go this far at any point prior to the opening round of the playoffs, especially not after losing to the Atlanta Hawks in the first game of the play-in tournament. The Nuggets, behind the leadership of two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, will look to win the franchise's first title, while the Heat, behind the playoff excellence of Jimmy Butler, will look to claim their franchise's fourth title after falling short in the 2020 Finals inside the Orlando bubble.ĭenver has plenty of momentum after surging through LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers with a four-game sweep in the Western Conference finals. The top-seeded Denver Nuggets are headed to their first NBA Finals in franchise history and will face the surprising eighth-seeded Miami Heat, who have surged back to the Finals via the play-in tournament. NBA Finals 2023: First look and series keys to the Nuggets-Heat showdown You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]()
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