DENVER — After an impressive victory to take a 1-0 lead in the 2023 NBA Finals, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone praised his team’s performance when he spoke with reporters SATURDAY.
“I don’t think we played well in the first game,” he said.
ALL RIGHT. Let’s try again.
After an impressive win to take a 1-0 lead in the 2023 NBA Finals, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone echoed the message he delivered to his players in the locker room at the Ball Arena Thursday night.
“I said to our players today, don’t read the paper, don’t listen to people on the radio and TV saying this streak is over and we’ve done something,” Malone said. “Because we didn’t do anything.”
In fairness, Malone did compliment several aspects of his team during his Q&A: the reserve corps of Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Christian Braun, the unparalleled chemistry between Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray in the two-man game, the “underrated defense” of Jokic, etc. revealed enough room for improvement to put off planning the parade route a bit longer.
“I thought our pick-and-roll defense was poor. I thought our ‘ground shrink’ was poor,” Malone said. “They got 11 offensive rebounds. Boom [Adebayo] had four. jimmy [Butler] had three. There are so many areas we can clean.
It’s understandable that Malone entered the weekend with the intention of making sure his players didn’t suddenly start believing the hype. (While we appreciate Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon ongoing support to stay up to date and stay informed about the world around him.) As dominant as Jokić looked, as lethal as Murray was, as much as the Nuggets dominated the smaller Heat, and as impressive as Denver played for three quarters in Game 1 — 84 points on 55.9 percent shooting, a searing 121.7 offensive rating — you need to play four at this level.
“Some possessions we play are amazing, and some possessions we haven’t played well,” Jokić said. “Some quarterbacks, we played really well. I think it’s basketball. That’s why it’s a living thing. You can’t predict what’s going to happen. Yeah, sure, we’re going to be better , but we will take 1-0 for us.”
As the big guy says, winning is the thing. It didn’t escape Malone, however, that Game 1 was still a three-possession contest with 2:34 to go despite an abysmal shooting performance from Miami.
“I watched this tape, and they were 5 of 16 over three wide open,” he said. “As I told our players this morning, the fact that they obtained 16 three wide open is problematic. And if you think Max Strus will go back to 0 for 9, or Duncan Robinson will go back to 1 for 5, you’re wrong.
This, really, is a trainer purpose: to look beyond the silver lining of the last victory, find the gray cloud of why you might have lost, and return to the lab, renewing the eternal search for sunlight. Grinders like Malone and Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra have spent their lives obsessing over minutia, sweating every detail, striving for perfection in a game where the best offenses miss half their shots and the best defenses drop 110 points per night. They will never reach it. If you get close enough, however, they give you a large gold trophy.
“The reason I told our players I was excited this morning is that we won the first game and we didn’t play well, and there are so many things we can do better. , Malone said.
Freshest in the minds of the Nuggets? A fourth quarter in which Denver was outscored 30-20, as the Heat cut a 24-point deficit to just nine points. The Nuggets shot just 7 for 20 from the floor and missed all eight of their 3-point attempts, as Miami’s zone defense – which they had cut out in the first half – seemed to stifle and stagnate their offense before. fluid. .
“There was definitely a period in this game where we were just throwing deep shots, contested shots,” said Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr., who missed nine of his 11 triple tries in the game. first game (a fact that Really surprised Jokic). “I don’t think we’ve really seen an area like they do, so it’s hard to make adjustments in the middle of a game when you don’t really know what’s going on.”
A look at the film, however, gave the Nuggets the feeling that their offensive process on those possessions was still pretty solid, even if they weren’t producing the desired results.
“I know Miami missed a lot of shots, but we also missed shots from close range,” Murray said. “When they went to the zone, Jok missed an open 15-footer. I missed an open 10ft. Mike missed a corner three wide open. I missed a catch-and-shoot on the wing, which was wide open. I think there are a few more. But we got the look we needed. We just didn’t knock them down. If we knock them down, I think they’ll start to break up the area a bit and come back to man.
That would be a good thing, considering Denver is scoring more than 1.2 points per possession against man-to-man defense in the playoffs, according to Second Spectrum — a mark that would have led the league in the regular season. But Malone, a defense coach first at heart, had another pitch for how the Nuggets could best neutralize the zone in Game 2.
“The reason their zone was effective in that fourth quarter was because we didn’t have any saves,” Malone said. “They shot 60% which allowed them to set up in their zone every possession it seemed.”
The Heat began to get back into the game by exploiting Denver’s pick-and-roll coverage, with Kyle Lowry taking advantage of a flat-footed Murray to set up Gabe Vincent for a 3-point catch-and-shoot in the front corner hiding behind Adebayo’s screens to drain his own pair of pull-up triples. The Nuggets adjusted, bringing their bigs higher off the ground and closer to screen level, which opened the door for Adebayo making plays in space – something he’s been doing all night to the tune of 26 points on 13-for-25 shooting with five assists.
“It was just a great opportunity for me,” Adebayo said. “I feel like all those shots were in my wheelhouse, and I’ve been shooting them all season.”
But while Malone would rather not give up all those marks to anyone wearing a Heat uniform, this shooting regimen doesn’t seem to be one that perturbs him too much.
“We didn’t go and say, ‘We’re going to make Bam Adebayo beat us,'” he said. “We arrived with total respect for Bam Adebayo. But if you’re going to score 26 points on 25 shots, that’s something we’re willing to live with.
The Heat, for their part, know they have to give the Nuggets something they can’t live with in Game 2. For example: More paint attacks from Butler, who scored just 13 points on 14 shots, with just seven of those attempts going in the lane.
“I just think I need to do a better job of getting the ball, demanding the ball, being more aggressive,” Butler said. “It’s just that, and that’s going to change in Game 2. … I think I need to be more aggressive putting pressure on the rim. I think it makes everybody’s job a lot easier. [My teammates] follow suit whenever I am aggressive on both sides of the ball. So I have to be the one who comes out and kicks it off the right way, which I will do, and we’ll see where we end up.
There’s a world of difference between going back to Miami 2-0 and tied at 1-1, which is why Malone and the Nuggets expect Butler and the rest of the Heat to significantly increase their strength and skill levels. aggression on Sunday. If the Nuggets don’t match up, all that post-Game 1 positivity will fade very quickly.
“You just can’t be complacent with this team. You can’t be nonchalant,” Gordon said. “You can’t sleep in this team. This team has no quits. They will keep fighting throughout the game. You have to understand that about this team. You can’t let go of the throttle with these guys.
Looks like Malone’s message came through loud and clear.
“First round, finals, it’s nothing until you win it, is it?” said Murray. “We haven’t won yet.”
Getting Game 2 on Sunday would get them halfway there. The Nuggets have a golden opportunity ahead of them. The Heat’s job is to force them to waste it.
“We’re here,” Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “Don’t fumble the ball on the 1 yard line.”