Positive Energy Surrounding Nuggets in Game 2 NBA Finals Evaporated After Loss
Positive Energy Surrounding Nuggets in NBA Finals Evaporated After Loss in Game 2 – Now the Finals are level – let us C how it happened …
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DENVER: Aaron Gordon sat at his locker in Denver and shook his head from time to time. His eyes darted around as though he were looking for something: his phone, a stat sheet, the floor beneath his feet. Perhaps some clarification on what the hell went on in the wilderness.
By the middle of the second quarter of Game 2 of the 2023 NBA Finals on Sunday night, Denver had built a 15-point lead.
However, the Nuggets’ suit of armour that they had built around themselves through 13 postseason wins lay disassembled at their feet after a fourth quarter in which they got their doors blown off, losing the quarter 36-25 on the strength of horrendous defensive lapses, repeated unforced errors, and a widespread lack of composure.
They’re up 3-2 in the Finals against the Miami Heat. Gone. Their undefeated record at home in the playoffs? Gone. A deciding game at home in this best-of-seven series? Gone. Where do they rank as the more physically dominant squad? The idea that their dominant offence by alone might win them the Larry O’B? Gone.
According to Cleaning the Glass, Denver’s 125.6 points per 100 possessions in Game 2 were higher than the team’s playoff high. Despite Miami’s offensive woes in Game 1, the Hurricanes posted their greatest offensive rating of the playoffs (129.1 points per 100 possessions).
And the positive feelings they inspired by controlling the first three quarters of Game 1? At least for the time being: gone.
As the crowd dispersed from Ball Arena, questions remained. We’ll have to wait and see if Gordon turned up anything: As soon as he got dressed after taking a shower, rumours spread that he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be speaking to the media.
(It’s worth noting that Heat forward Caleb Martin, who was sick on Saturday and didn’t participate in the media availability, was given the all-clear to play in Game 2 and saw 21 minutes of action off the bench while allegedly suffering from migraines and cold chills.)
Michael Porter Jr. and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope both left the game early. Caldwell-Pope fouled out in the game’s last minute, and Porter Jr. sat for the majority of the fourth quarter, so it’s unclear if they were also battling illness. Together, they scored just 11 points on 3-for-12 shooting.
Nikola Jokic did his postgame duty and addressed questions on whether he thought Miami was using him more for scoring than passing, Denver’s offensive lull in the fourth quarter, and the difficulty of guarding Bam Adebayo in the pick-and-roll.
The two-time MVP’s attitude changed, however, when asked about the morale in the Nuggets’ locker room following the loss. Initiating a sentence with, “I don’t…” he stopped himself. He halted and turned away from the podium.
He asked a member of the Nuggets’ public relations team, “Can I not answer this question?” and was given the all-clear. “Next question,” Jokic said.
It’s amazing how much you can convey by simply remaining silent.
A lot of things were expressed by Michael Malone. Even though his side came away with an 11-point victory in Game 1, he told reporters on Saturday that they hadn’t performed very well. I doubt he enjoyed Sunday’s “I told you so” party. He felt compelled to do so after seeing a starting lineup that has been among the NBA’s best since October outscore their opponents by 13.1 points per 100 possessions during the regular season and 10.3 points per 100 possessions in the playoffs entering Game 2.
“Let’s talk about effort,” Malone suggested.
The NBA Finals, and we’re discussing intensity. That worries me a lot. After Game 1, when I mentioned we didn’t play well, you probably assumed I was making up a narrative. We had a poor performance.
Some of our players were acting like it was still the preseason, wallowing in self-pity because they weren’t making shots or mistakenly believing they could simply flip a switch and play better or worse. This is not a typical game day. Here we are at the NBA Finals. That makes zero sense to me at all. Disappointing.”
Not only the coach didn’t know what to do, but nobody did.
In the Finals, “it’s the f***ing Finals, man,” as veteran forward Jeff Green put it after contributing 9 points in 16 minutes off the bench. Our power needs to increase. We can’t fail like this; instead, we must succeed with greater brilliance.
Green, Bruce Brown, and Christian Braun, the Nuggets’ three-man bench unit, provided the ferocity that the starting unit lacked, swarming Miami’s ball-handlers, forcing turnovers, sprinting the floor in transition, attacking the rim, and stroking threes.
Over the course of the final nine minutes of the first half and the first five minutes of the second, this unit led Denver to a 31-9 run, giving the Nuggets a 50-35 lead with five minutes left in the first half.
However, attention began to wander as the starters returned to the game. With Denver’s mistakes helping fuel a 12-2 run for Miami, the Heat were able to close to within two possessions at halftime.
These Denver errors included overly aggressive help and closeouts that opened up 3-point looks, turnovers that led to fast-break baskets, bailout fouls on 3-point shooters (which happened multiple times in Game 2), and a lack of physicality in pick-and-roll coverage.
Malone took timeout after Denver surrendered 11 points on four plays within the opening minute and a half of the third quarter, lamenting the constant stream of missed assignments and sloppy defence.
Malone noted that Miami’s 17-for-35 (48.6%) performance from 3-point range in Game 2 was due to “miscommunication, game-plan breakdowns, personnel breakdowns.” “…I was worried after Game 1 when they made 16 open 3-pointers, as I had mentioned. They weren’t created by them.
In the first game, we lucked out. They created it tonight. It was undeniably a case of poor communication. Clearly, we made a mistake in our strategy. Furthermore, as I already stated, we lacked the necessary level of discipline to get to the NBA Finals.
Nonetheless, the Nuggets entered the fourth quarter ahead, mostly due to Joki’s brilliance, despite their shaky discipline. He had 31 points after 31 minutes (12 for 23) and 18 in the third quarter alone.
Denver stifled Duncan Robinson in the first half, preventing the sharpshooter from taking a shot for the first five ineffective minutes of the game. However, once the second half began, the sloppiness and lack of attention to detail reared their ugly heads as Robinson found some air and quickly warmed up.
The wheels came off for me at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Malone said. They were making their threes and their layups, so they could once again take a backseat in their zone and slow the tempo of the game.
We struggled to get defensive stops and subsequently to convert offensive rebounds into points. We need a much stronger defence. Our defence completely collapsed in the fourth quarter in both Games 1 and 2.
Brown stated that when the wheels began to wobble early in the fourth, the team’s approach was straightforward: “Stay together and try to get a stop.” We’re trying to keep it together and get a stop because we know that if we do, we have a chance to score on the other end.
It felt like they were playing in quicksand when they couldn’t do that; in the fourth quarter, Miami went 6-for-7 on 2-pointers, 5-for-9 on 3-pointers, and 9-for-10 on free throws, with superb ball and body movement resulting in 9 assists on 11 makes.
“It’s defeating when you’re giving up mistake after mistake, and it’s not them beating you, you’re giving them open dunks or open shots,” said Murray, who finished with 18 points, 10 assists, and two late 3-pointers as Denver tried to make a comeback. That’s a tough hole to climb out of. … We can’t just have stretches of “good in the second quarter” and “good at the end of the third quarter.”
We can’t afford to have hot streaks. Through the highs and lows of the game, we must play as one and maintain our passion and focus. That’s something I don’t think we had.
A big late-game breakdown can be disastrous when playing against the Heat, who are a composed, sharp, relentless squad that never seems to run out of intensity or energy and who take great delight in capitalising on every mistake they make.
In fact, Malone thought the defence was “pretty good” for three quarters tonight. I think they were at a 43% clip into the last stanza. However, you let up 36 points on 69% shooting in the final frame. Not even close to good enough. Not even close to good enough.
Back in the locker room after the game, Gordon was still looking about when Brown stepped up in his cowboy hat and expressed some optimism, albeit with the reflective tone of someone who’s just had a cold cup of coffee.
Brown, who played 27 minutes off the bench and finished with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 3 turnovers, assured the crowd that they would be fine. As one member of the group said, “I think we needed this to wake us up a little bit.”
Brown hesitated for a second before explaining why he believed they required such a rude awakening. The previous couple days, our attention wasn’t where it needed to be, Brown said. But the next game is coming up.
We better hope so. If they don’t win the championship, the hopes and expectations that have been floating around Denver like a cloud for the past four days could start to turn into nightmares about lost opportunities.
