We have a series!
After game one, there was a lot of thought this series was going to be over quickly, and there was going to be very little excitement to run with. However, we sit after game two with the series tied 1-1 after Miami scraped a win in Denver, giving them home court advantage going back to South Beach.
I said going into the series that Miami would struggle to score over 110, and they just about managed it yesterday with 111. In order to achieve that score, they had to shoot 17 of 35 threes, which is 49%. That is very high for any NBA team, and not something that can be sustained. Denver on the other hand shot 11 of 28 which is 39%, much more along the lines of what to expect. The Nuggets again did not hit the 125+ I expected and they had been hitting in previous games, and that’s despite a 41 from Jokic.
The Nuggets started slow, scoring 23 in the first quarter, but followed that with some spice in the second by scoring 34. They led at the half by 6 but ended up losing because the role players for Denver were not hitting shots, and Murray had a bit of a slower night which didn’t help. The story through these playoffs has been Joker averaging a triple double going into the finals. Last night he only had 5 assists, which normally for a big man would be great, but for a man with the passing ability of Jokic, that shows the team didn’t support him well enough.
Going into game 3, the Nuggets need to be prepared for a dog fight, and they need to support Jokic. He is going to dominate effortlessly but it might not be enough if he is having to do it on his own, and they need a win in Miami, whether that’s game 3 or game 4. Jamal Murray hasn’t done anything to make you think he can’t have a bounce-back game, and that’s what I would expect.
I am not as confident in game 3 as I was in game 2, but I would still stick with Denver to win. I would then expect Miami to win game 4.