2023 NBA Finals Nuggets CRUISE PAST Heat In Game 3 To Take 2-1 Series Lead

Breaking news into HQ game three the NBA Finals in the books the Denver Nuggets 109 94 winners over the Miami Heat they get triple doubles from both Nicola Jokic and Jamal Murray and beefy ones at that that duo become the first pair of teammates each with a triple-double in an NBA Finals game the Nuggets grab a 2-1 series advantage let's bring in Colin Ward a Henninger to get insight here Michael Malone called out his team's effort after game two I'd say they responded your takeaways from game three yeah effort absolutely and I think execution is really the key term particularly in that first half you didn't see as many miscues defensively and that is really what the difference was between game two and game three the Nuggets lost so many shooters in that game to giving Max truce open looks giving Gabe Vincent open looks you didn't see that in game three and when you limit those surrounding players on the Miami team it forces Jimmy Butler and BAM out of bio to do very heavy lifting and as you saw Jimmy Butler had a good start he was taking advantage of mismatches when he could but BAM out of bio didn't have a good shooting night and Butler can't do it all himself the Miami Heat just didn't get enough from their role players and you saw the Nuggets they're two big stars just absolutely came to play with those monster triple doubles and that was really the difference in the game hey we mentioned the triple doubles from both Jokic and Murray Jokic becomes the first player ever in the finals with a 30 20 10 game he had four assists in game two but they spread the wealth with regards to the offense in this game is this the way you're accustomed to seeing the Nuggets play at least when they're successful yeah this is the way the Nuggets want to play Nikola Jokic is great of a score he is as great as he is in the low post as great of a shooter he is he wants to pass the ball he wants to be a facilitator and that's when the Nuggets are at their best so really what the difference was is Jamal Murray did not get off to a good start in game two partly because Jimmy Butler was guarding him this time around in game three Jamal Murray got off to a hot start that mean that he'd even had to start trapping him having to start create extra opportunities for Jokic in the middle in four on three situations and you are absolutely playing with fire if you're asking him to do that so Jokic scored when he had to he sensed in the third quarter maybe his team was a little flat went out and got a bunch of buckets got back to that passing and spread offense that they're so good at so this is absolutely the blueprint if you're the Denver Nuggets and it's up to the Miami Heat to try to figure out a way to try to stop Jamal Murray which in turn they can try to make Jokic a scorer like they did in game two yeah you mentioned it and Eric Spalster was kind of bristled at the notion after game two with respect to Jokic becoming a big scorer and then the others around him they kind of contain when Jamal Murray scores 34 points and Jokic does what he customarily does on this night 32 can you beat the Denver Nuggets it's really really hard and what you can't do is allow guys like Christian Brown to go out and have 15 points getting it on back cuts on layups on dunks those are the types of things that you have to prevent it's easier said than done if you're double teaming Jamal Murray and you're preventing the outlet pass from going to Jokic you're playing three on two and that's why all those lanes in the basket is open on the back side so it's a very difficult task with Jamal Murray makes such difficult shots that you look at the Heat defense and you're not you can't say that they made a bunch of mistakes they're playing pretty well they're playing physical they're clearly well schooled and they're executing their coverages it's just sometimes Murray is that good and that dynamic of a scorer that he is going to beat great defense and then once he gets going what do you do to stop him and what are the ripple effects so in short if they're gonna both go out and get 30 point triple doubles I don't see the Heat winning this series but there are things that they can do to try to at least limit the role players around them if these two are gonna have huge games yeah you get 15 from a rookie who hit seven of his eight shots from the floor you mentioned Christian Brown from Miami's standpoint the way they played this game in their return from home Miami had been very good in game threes Denver a really good road team in this postseason what counter do the Heat have to have in the next game to get even in this series yeah it sounds pretty silly but they need to make shots I mean this is kind of a mirror image of game one right like Miami had some decent looks they just couldn't go down really what the difference was to me I think that BAM out of bio was so good in games one and two I think that we kind of started taking that for granted okay they have Jimmy Butler and BAM out of bio they're both gonna show up every night BAM out of bio had a big statistical game in game three we did not shoot the ball well and he's gonna shoot 30% from the field Denver's gonna take that every single time and the fact that they didn't have a third scorer was very apparent in game three for Miami Gabe Vincent had a terrible game Max Drews had a terrible game they are missing Tyler hero that's a guy that if he is able to come back in this series you see the type of impact that he could have if he can be that third guy to come in and say hey let me take some of the load off of BAM and off of Jimmy and go out there and actually get some buckets because Miami isn't playing bad defense despite the gaudy numbers from Jokic and Murray in game three I think they're happy with this 104 to 110 range they just need to score more and whether that comes from a guy like hero or comes from the role players stepping up in different games I think that's what they're gonna need in game four yeah you touched on it to back that point BAM 7 of 21 from the floor Vincent and Shrews and Vincent's been a big player for them in this postseason combined 3 for 17 is that Denver just digging in on the defensive end a little bit of both right like they did miss some good looks but it's because they were able to take away those easy ones that they got at the beginning of game two in particular when Denver is locked in defensively and they're communicating well in their switches that was a point of emphasis for Mike Malone before the game Michael Malone excuse me to communicate and that would eliminate a lot of the mistakes that they saw at the beginning of game two and you saw that in game three there weren't those blown coverages that led to wide open three-pointers and if you can contain those guys in the early going they aren't the Jamal Murray types right that I'll see one go in and suddenly they're all going in generally if they don't get off to good starts it's hard for them to get the ball rolling and then that's what it relies more on their traditional scorers so Denver did lock in absolutely defensively but there is just going to be some shooting variants and that's what the heat of really depended on throughout this postseason run yeah Colin you get 50 combined points from BAM and Jimmy Butler despite the fact that the field goal percentage might have been very high but when you get 50 from them combined who's the third guy that needs to kind of step up on Miami's end to give them a shot in game three yeah I think it has to be a guy who can create their own shot so it has been gave Vincent in the first two games because he's not the most prolific one-on-one scorer but with his step back to this ability to hit mid range occasionally get to the basket that's the type of guy who can go out and get you 1920 points in a game ultimately they don't really have another guy like that in the roster if you want to say Kyle Lowry maybe hit us with it one of those throwback games at some point during the series he could be that third guy but that's really the limitation of this heat roster without Tyler Hero they don't have a guy who can just go out and get you buckets so we'll see if that hand is healing if that wrist is healing and he can get to the point where he can get on the floor because I think there's a lot of talk like if Tyler Hero is able to come back should they bring him back the heat are playing so well why would they want to mess with a good thing I think game 3 showed us that they need a guy like Tyler Hero and his skill set if they're gonna be able to keep up with this Denver Nuggets offense it's it's hard to think they can if Nikola Jokic plays like this he's been a monster in these playoffs he was a monster in game 3 first 30 20 10 game ever in the finals he's Colin Ward a Henninger Colin we appreciate the insight this is what the schedule looks like game 4 comes Friday again in South Florida before the venue shifts back a mile high to Denver for game 5 Nuggets lead the series two games to one after both Jokic and Murray turn in 30-point triple-doubles in game 3