Shaq & Chuck React to Heat Bounce Back Win in Game 2

The vacation clock is back guys. Oh my God. We, we added time. Chuck, you lost some weight, man. I think it's, I think it's still right. No, it was an hour and a half earlier. Are you sure about that? I'm damn sure. Do you have any proof? I mean, I can go back and look at the tape. What'd you say, Chuck? I'm damn sure. Yeah. Y'all better quit adding time. I think you might be mistaken. No, no, no. Hey man, y'all better quit adding time. Just like when you add up on the golf course. You offer those numbers, offer those numbers a little bit. I thought your last, I thought your last name was four yesterday. I thought you were a four. I thought you were Ahmaud's caddy. Ahmaud carry you. Hey, you remember that one hole? He's over there icing his back now with Commissioner Silver. Remember that one hole, you hit it in that kitchen. You were thirsty. Go to commercial, Matt. Abort, abort, Matt, abort. I was going to talk about Bam, but now I want to get to that last possession for Denver and there are different philosophies on this, whether to call a timeout or not. Michael Malone chose not to, Shaq. Murray gets off a decent shot, doesn't go. That happens sometimes. What did you think of that decision? You know, I think in the finals, you have to be very, very strategic and he decided not to call a timeout. Jamal Murray is an exciting player, especially in this building and he can't hit that shot. I thought he was disruptive right there. Everybody liked that side step three. Iron unkind hit the front of the rim. But again, you know, it's one of those situations where some people say, Hey, call the time on, get a play. And others say, you know what? Go ahead and go put it in either Jamal or Joker John. And, you know, Jamal had a great shot, but he just missed. I mean, the, you know, the one side is you've got your best one on one player in terms of a guy who can hit a perimeter three, getting the kind of shot. We've seen him hit a million times. Well, I mean, look, in that situation, you call a timeout. What is he going to do? He's going to have two men between Jokic and Jamal Murray. And look, oftentimes coaches trust their guys, their main guys in those situations, uh, and he trusted them and they didn't come through. If he hit that shot, we'd be saying something differently right now. But every different, you know, different ways to approach it. And that's what Michael Malone and that's it. But, but look, it wasn't that last play, right? It was really what Miami did. And, and quite frankly, to be honest with you, I was on the call and the two losses prior to this one game four in Minnesota and game four in Phoenix, both games, uh, in Minnesota, Jokic went for 43 and in Phoenix, he went for 53. And tonight we go 41, 41, and then, and all the 40 plus games he's had this season, eight of them, they're four and four. So Miami, it was almost like they were, you know, I know Gabe said they threw different looks at him, but they played him straight up pretty much. And they basically said, you know what? We're going to make him beat us, but we're going to slow down everybody else. And you know what? It appeared that game plan worked. Yep. And in the meantime, Jimmy Butler took the assignment on Jamal Murray for much of the game. Yeah. Uh, Jamal Murray is going to step up, but also Michael Porter Junior's got to step up. And I thought that, uh, KCP made some bonehead decisions, fouling Kyle Lowry. He fouled a couple of times on three point shooters. Can't do that because you can't make mistakes. I think what Grant said earlier, and you said earlier, and Jeff Van Gundy was doing a fabulous job cause we were watching the game, man, the different nuggets, they got to realize this ain't a regular season game. There was at least five or six occasions where they doubled and left guys wide freaking open. And you know, it's sooner or later that he was going to start making shots, the attention to detail. Michael Malone talked about it and, but they didn't listen to me. They came out flat. They were playing this game like a regular season game. And even when they kept it going, the heat had got their confidence. Gabe Vincent was terrific. Bam did well. Duncan Roberts was great. And then Jimmy finished them off, but you have to respect, I thought they played this game like a regular season game tonight. Well, it's interesting. Michael Malone was talking about after game one, his criticism was we got to play 48 minutes, right? And there were apparent lapses in attention by Denver tonight. And it all started at the last game in the fourth quarter. You know, Miami saw some things that work. They weren't doubling, you know, Joker that much then, but you know, Grant, you make a great point. We're not going to double Joker, make them, you know, stop the others play very, very aggressive on defense. I was sitting at the other end. The refs let him get away. They were very, very physical with the guards and the switches on the pick and roll, you know, with the Joker. Every time he'd come, they'd give him a hard extra bump. And then he came out aggressive and, you know, Struce started him off. He came out, you know, he, um, you know, he ended up shooting what four for 10. Yep. But he started them off, you know, he had some big, big, big threes and you know, the heat, they lost the lead. They came back, they lost the lead and they came back. And, you know, Denver did come out flat and they should be ashamed because, you know, all the talk about, you know, championship ready and, you know, them being the favorites, they do what they had to do in game one. But Chuck makes a great point. You should never come out flat when you have the home court advantage. It's inexplicable. When an NBA finals game, it was crazy, um, how flat they came out. And to me, they were making just too many mental errors, but like from a player standpoint, you had to say to yourself, the Miami heat, they, who they are, they're going to come out and to get off to that sloppy of a start. Uh, it was, it was weird for me. I was like, come on, man, you guys are trying to win a championship and to come out flat. And, uh, I was, I was in shock. And like I say, Struce got him started. It was a really great team. And I remember about a heat, but the nuggets deserve some like, yo man, y'all do it. We are trying to win a championship. And Chuck, you're so spot on. I mean, think about this Miami. They're in the playing game. They're down against Chicago. They lose to the Hawks in the first playing game. Then they got to go to Milwaukee. You know, they go to New York, Jimmy gets hurt. They get up three, then all of a sudden Boston wins three. And they have the game seven at home. Like they've gone through some tough moments in this post season. So that grit that we're talking about, that resilience, like it's been there. It's the Miami heat culture, but they've gone through that in this postseason, Denver, they haven't faced any of it. This is the first, the first, not only that great. And not only that, you know, I've been saying about Miami, you have to put this team away, right? Win or lose. They're going to play the same way. They're going to shoot the same shots. They're going to call the same place. When you have this team down, you have to put your foot on the neck and put them away. You can't give them a chance to come back because if you give them a chance to give them that life, anything can happen. And to piggyback on Grant's point, I'm curious to see game three now, because Denver hadn't lost a home game. They've been up in every series, obviously. And now you're like, Oh, you know, that place in Miami is going to be rocking. So I'm looking forward. Cause you, cause like you gotta know, you got to raise your level, your intensity, every round you go into playoffs and for them to come out like that tonight, I'm like, Oh man, we're going to see what they made of. Well, it's interesting. You know, early in the playoffs, no one was really talking about Denver, you know, in the West, they were talking about Phoenix. They were talking about golden state, even the Lakers. And so they always had this sort of like chip on their shoulders, something to prove, but then all of a sudden, like now they're the heavy favorite. Now they're the favorite, you know, sort of a different ball game for them. And they didn't play great. We talked about, they didn't play their best in game one. We thought they'd play better tonight. We did. You know, cause they come off the 10 day layoff and they regressed. Yeah. And they were real happy at the game one. And Mike Malone did a great job of calming them down. Hey, we haven't done anything yet. No, but it didn't show on the court though. So you're right. It didn't, it didn't. And remember Miami, you know, Eric Sposter has been talking about it throughout the postseason. They played more clutch games. Those are those games that are close in the final five minutes in the regular season than any team in the league. They had more wins in those situations than any team they've been battling like this all season long and in the postseason, you know, their biggest lead that the Nuggets had a chance. If they had a kept their foot to the pedal, they had a chance to blow this game out. It felt that way. Yeah. And even in the third quarter, they still had a good size lead. But if you let these guys hang around, you see Benson, Duncan Robertson, Jimmy Bam. I mean, Shaq is a hundred percent right. What did I tell you at halftime? Who's going to win the game? Damn Charles, you good looking. Oh, you mean something else? What did I tell you at halftime? Who's going to win the game? I'm going to tell him what you told me in the locker room the other day. Yeah. Okay. It's probably something about vacation. No, I told him he was going to win this game. You told him my body was looking good. Oh no, I did. I'm sure that's not true. No, I did. I told him. Yeah, you're right, brother. Hey, hey, hey. Nobody added any time. Yes, they did. It was an hour and a half at one point. You got to check your memory, Chuck. No, I got a good memory. I got a good memory.