2023 NBA Finals: Nuggets at Heat GAME 3 FULL PREVIEW I CBS Sports

It is a fantastic NBA finals. For more on that, we welcome in former coach of the year, NBA Chance One, Avery Johns. This is your first time to our studio. First time. Welcome. Well, second time I was here earlier this morning. That's true. But you know, I mean, now you're here with Chris and I, and that's what really matters. Coach, I feel like this series is a complete chess match. And I want to talk about Yoko Chir, because what the Miami Heat are doing right now, they're saying, look, score all the points you want. Had a 41 that last game. If we can limit your assists, and ideally less than five, that's where the Nuggets are 0-3 this postseason when he has under five assists. That's the answer to solving the Joker. But is that sustainable? It's easier said than done, because when you're in the NBA finals, and I've coached in the finals before, you can have all the different strategies, but sometimes you have to throw it out of the window. Fortunately, Eric Spoelstra, who's coaching in his sixth NBA finals, they made a strategic decision to make sure that all of their switches are correctly, pick and roll defenses sound, so that when Yokich receives the basketball, they want to shut down all of his passing lanes. They want to force him to be a scorer. As much as Eric Spoelstra said, hey, that wasn't our strategy. It just happened that way. No, it didn't. I've coached in these games before. Look, they wanted him to put the ball on the floor, go against that one-on-one coverage against Bam Adebayo, maybe bring Kevin Love over to help a little bit off Aaron Gordon, but shut down those three-point shooters. You can tell Michael Porter Jr. struggled, because he didn't have any wide open windows. Great adjustment by Eric Spoelstra and his staff. Porter Jr., two for eight from the floor, saw that shot all over social media where he took a jumper from 17 feet, and he had three of his teammates wide open. Joker needs more from those teammates, like Jamal Murray, who was scoring 30-plus in that series against the Lakers where they swept. In this series, Avery, he has scored just 26 and 18 in games one and two, respectively. How do they get him going more? Well, one of the things they have to do is get Jimmy Butler off of Murray. Jimmy Butler started on Aaron Gordon in game one, but when Eric Spoelstra made the adjustment and inserted Kevin Love into the lineup, then that put Jimmy Butler on Jamal Murray. You got to figure out a way for Murray to go against guys like Strews and some of the other smaller defenders like Kyle Lowry. And even when he scores on Jimmy Butler, he has to work too hard. So he's got to get Jimmy Butler off of Murray, and Murray needs to move a little bit more. That's what their offense is predicated on, ball movement, instead of him just catching the ball and hold it. So he's got to move and cut and go to that third and fourth cut sometime and make Jimmy Butler work more on defense. Stick with Denver here for a second, because Mike Malone, his biggest message after that last game, he talked about effort with his team, that they didn't want it enough, that they were getting frustrated. Jamal Murray said this after the game, you're giving them open dunks, you're giving them open shots. It's tough to come back. We have to stay looking ahead. So from a coach's perspective who's been in this position, you got a team that's frustrated, you want to fix that. Also, what adjustments on the court do you need to make for Denver? I thought it was a little bit of an overreaction because Denver was undefeated at home in the playoffs, right? So in a situation like this, this is Coach Malone's first NBA Finals. I thought maybe you went a little bit too far because you're dealing with a young team, guys that have never played in the final. Caldwell Pope obviously won a championship with the Lakers in the bubble, but for the rest of these guys, this is the biggest stage that they've ever been on. So I thought the messaging was probably a little bit too forced, maybe showed some nervousness on behalf of a coach that has never been there before because your team takes on the personality of your coach, and if your coach seems to think that he's panicking a little bit, some of that messaging needs to be held inside the locker room or in practice, maybe not for public consumption. Especially right after coming off a loss. What about on the court? What else would you like to see from Denver in this game? Well, they got to defend the three-point line. We've been talking about it all along. Whenever the Miami Heat makes 15 or more threes, they're almost unbeatable. This was the worst three-point shooting team or one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the regular season. I think they were ranked 27th from three. Now they're the number one three-point shooting team in the playoffs. So guys like Struce, Lowry, you got to limit their production from behind the three-point line. So your closeouts on defense, you can't necessarily just close to the touch. You have to close like you're under their jersey and force those guys that are three-point shooters to drive the basketball. And in that game, Miami once again hitting 15 plus 17 threes in that game. Jimmy Butler though, surprisingly, didn't have to do a lot offensively. This is not the same Jimmy Butler on the offensive end that we saw against the Bucs when he was scoring 35, 40, 55 points in a game. Just under 20 points per game in this series. Is he gonna have to do more if they want to win this whole thing? Chris, I think we're gonna have to see playoff Jimmy in game three. I really believe that because if he's playoff Jimmy in game three, he's gonna create more wide open looks for his teammates and he's gonna force the Nuggets to have to double-team him in situations. I don't think we can see the passive aggressive Jimmy Butler that we saw in game one. Remember that led to only two free-throw attempts. Remember in game one for Miami, they got to the free-throw line, what, 20 times in the last game. But this game, you gotta, Jimmy Butler's got to be aggressive, especially if his players show some signs of nervousness early on. Remember Struess in game one struggled to make a shot. He made the same amount of points in game one that you and Amanda and I made combined. We didn't have to take 10 shots. Right. So I just think Jimmy's got to come out, look for him to try to score 12 or 14 points in the first quarter in game three. Chris claims he plays pickup basketball, but I don't think this 15 years ago. No, the guys upstairs always invite you to go play. Well, yeah, but I always say no. Too old. Like Avery doesn't play anymore. Avery and I hung it up at the same time. No. Oh, we did? Yeah. Oh no, Avery Johnson did not. Yeah, you don't play anymore, do you Avery? In my mind, I do. My body doesn't call. I'm a tennis player now. Definitely do that. Okay, someone, you mentioned Jimmy Butler there and I love this after the last game or after game one, you know, he always says, oh, I like to do things I like. He said he was going to go in escape room and he went over to the University of Colorado at Boulder with his longtime trainer and said, I need to get my touch back. So that's what, that's what Jimmy's doing. The heat as a whole, though, you're back at home. You have the momentum. We can expect those role players to do what they're doing. Coach Spoh is just pulling tricks out of a hat. How does Miami get this win? I love when Miami changes up their defenses because they realize, especially against Jokic, the man-to-man defense is not going to be useful consistently in this series. So give Coach Spoh credit. They have two iterations or versions of their zone matchup defense and he sprinkles it in every now and then. I believe he's going to play a little bit more zone in game three. This is the same zone that the Boston Celtics, they still haven't figured it out. That's why they're at home in the Miami Heat or in the final. So I think mixing up his defenses a little bit more, it's much of the same. Force Jokic to be a scorer. But also, this is the big key. Even though Jokic had 41 points, remember now Bam Adebayo played well in game two. So they're going to make Jokic play defense. Bam pushing the ball up in transition, they're not going to allow him to rest. Hopefully he'll run out of gas at the end of the game. And that's why I like the Miami Heat in game three. I'm going to put you on the line. Which is a tougher environment? Denver or Miami? Definitely. You almost made me stutter. I was going to say Miami because I lost in the 2006 NBA Finals. We were up 2-0, came to Miami and lost three straight games, went on to lose that series 4-2. I was going to say Miami, but I'm not going to give them that much benefit. Oh, there you go. Still a chip on his shoulder. You will be at the game though. Let's take a look at the rest of the schedule. We got game three coming up on Wednesday. Avery's going to be there for that. He's going to be there Friday. Are you going back to Denver, coach? Or are you going back to studio? I'm only covering the games in South Florida. Hey, that's because we have nicer weather here. And his son, Avery Jr., set up quite a few good dinners for Avery Johnson there. All right, tip off Wednesday, 8-3, game three in Miami.