FINALS Game 3 - Nuggets @ Heat

[Coach Sticky]

I DID THIS

[Ring]

Would be cool if KCP and MPJ decide to play like NBA rotation caliber basketball players. f***ing pathetic performances on both ends from those 2 in Game 2. Just disgusting from KCP who is a vet and a Champion. He owes us.

[wizardofcozz]

Jun 5, 2023 8:50:28 GMT -5 Ring said:

Would be cool if KCP and MPJ decide to play like NBA rotation caliber basketball players. f***ing pathetic performances on both ends from those 2 in Game 2. Just disgusting from KCP who is a vet and a Champion. He owes us.

He fouled a guy shooting a 3 pointer three times. If Miami only makes one of those 3s and the obvious goal tending call gets called we win that game by 5.

More importantly I can't understand why team is so worried about Butler. I'd switch everything and force Butler and Adebayo to beat us inside. Neither has been super efficient and even if both score 20+ they will have to do it on a lot of shots which takes away from Miamis 3s. I'd sell out on not letting Miami get good looks from 3 at the expense of Butler wearing himself out scoring against our size.

[jimijam28]

Great , will be down 2-1 s**t thread

[freakns]

I don't think Nuggets should change anything.
7 wins in a row in playoffs, that's no easy task. Shitty games like this one will happen. Just get back with focus and intensity, and we good. You need to want it as much as Miami does, its that simple. Only then your quality will shine.

also, interesting, Miami is letting Jokic do Jokic things. their main focus is stopping Jamal. just like Minnesota series. only difference, they don't have twin towers inside, so Jokic better be ready to deliver 50 next game.

[Coach Sticky]

[Coach Sticky]

Me, the retired goat, when people can’t s**t their s**t together

[jimijam28]

can we ban this fake goat ,-

[Coach Sticky]

mmmmäääähhhhh

[eathb]

This is fucked

[Rohrbach] "Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Kevin Durant made 151 of their 364 3-point attempts (41.5%) en route to the 2017 title; Vincent, Martin and Robinson (135-314 3P, 43%) are on pace to surpass them if the Heat do the unthinkable."

[rock]

Going to lose the finals because roll players shoot better than the all time greatest team.

Unreal.

[JB]

please Malone, just ape Miami's defensive strategy and let Jimmy Buckets score 50 and stop the role players. he's injured, he's tasked with guarding Jamal now. he's great, but he's not Heat-era LeBron.

[sawyeral]

Deep breath. Miami is in the finals for a reason. They’ve played hard and played big late in games. Miami out-clutched us, which is rare. Nuggets blew a chance to maybe turn this series into a laugher. But it’s gonna be a tough one. I believe in our guys. They’ll answer the call. I think you’ll see a lot less open looks for Miami and I think you’ll see the return of game 1 bulky ball on Thursday

[game]

Look at the box scores from Miami in the Milwaukee series. Specifically the 3 point shooting. Eerily consistent and similar to what we saw yesterday.

And almost all those games were very close! So all those arguments you're seeing from Nuggets fans about "nuclear shooting and we still almost won" were true there.

Malone and the Nuggets better be taking this s**t extremely seriously. "Try harder and we're good" ain't it. The game yesterday has been Miami's consistent winning formula.

I do think you have to make Butler a 1:1 scorer much more than you're doing now given the miles he's had in these playoffs and the two way responsibility he's taking on.

I don't love the complete loss of composure by several Nuggets in the middle and after one loss in the Finals.

[highbury06]

Jun 5, 2023 9:09:05 GMT -5 wizardofcozz said:

Jun 5, 2023 8:50:28 GMT -5 Ring said:

Would be cool if KCP and MPJ decide to play like NBA rotation caliber basketball players. f***ing pathetic performances on both ends from those 2 in Game 2. Just disgusting from KCP who is a vet and a Champion. He owes us.

He fouled a guy shooting a 3 pointer three times. If Miami only makes one of those 3s and the obvious goal tending call gets called we win that game by 5.

More importantly I can't understand why team is so worried about Butler. I'd switch everything and force Butler and Adebayo to beat us inside. Neither has been super efficient and even if both score 20+ they will have to do it on a lot of shots which takes away from Miamis 3s. I'd sell out on not letting Miami get good looks from 3 at the expense of Butler wearing himself out scoring against our size.

absolutely. they force joker to score. we can force jb and bam to attack the basket and prevent the shooters from shooting threes.

[GBG]

Let’s look at the numbers::

In 20 playoff games, Miami is shooting 46.9/39.2./81.0 and averaging 110.7 ppg,
In 17 playoff games, Denver is shooting 49.3/38.2/81.7 and averaging 115.2 ppg.

In 20 playoff games, Miami is allowing opponents to shoot 46.2/32.6/75.8 and average 107.3 ppg.
In 17 playoff games, Denver is allowing opponents to shoot 46.9/35.1/80.7 and average 107.4 ppg.

Miami’s point differential is +3.4 ppg and they are 13-7 in the playoffs.
Denver’s point differential is +7.8 ppg and they are 13-4 in the playoffs.

I see a Nuggets team that usually wins decisively but has lost games when the opponent got insanely hot shooting. Miami, on the other hand, are good but not dominating. When they win, they seem to do it by holding opponents to cold shooting. They’ve allowed a 32.6% opponent’s 3PT% compared to our allowing 35.1%. Maybe we’ve just faced better perimeter shooting teams. Overall we are the more efficient team at 49.3% FG% to their 46.9%.


Miami is supposedly the superior outside shooting team but are shooting 39.2% from 3 compared to our 38.2%. They make 12.1 3-pointers per game to our 10.5. They don’t seem much better from outside. Meanwhile, we’ve made 17.2 FTs to their 17.9. Not a huge disparity,

Scooter post overthinks this, IMO. We are nearly as good from outside, and much more efficient inside with height advantage. Over a long series, we will see the percentages from Game 2 normalize, and I expect at least one win in Miami in this series. I doubt we lose again at home. We learned our lesson. Come out of the locker room with our hair on fire to start game and after halftime. That’s exactly where we lost Game 2, aside from our allowing 49% shooting from behind the arc, compared to our normally allowing 35.1% and their normal 39.1% shooting accuracy. It was very much an outlier game that was very weird. Our non-Jokic minutes in first half was our only dominant stretch.

[highbury06]

Jun 5, 2023 23:38:14 GMT -5 GBG said:

Let’s look at the numbers::

In 20 playoff games, Miami is shooting 46.9/39.2./81.0 and averaging 110.7 ppg,
In 17 playoff games, Denver is shooting 49.3/38.2/81.7 and averaging 115.2 ppg.

In 20 playoff games, Miami is allowing opponents to shoot 46.2/32.6/75.8 and average 107.3 ppg.
In 17 playoff games, Denver is allowing opponents to shoot 46.9/35.1/80.7 and average 107.4 ppg.

absolutely. we didn't really hustle and was all over the place in game 1-2. If we didn't lose yesterday, we may still play like this in game 3-4 thinking that we can easily win the title without working hard. now they've got the sense of urgency and they have to hustle from the beginning til the end. i think we can win the next 3 and do-a-2014 spurs.

[duh88]

I had to think deeply about Scooter's comments, that 2 PF's on the floor were costing us - it caused me to do a deep-dive review of both of the last games. My notes:

1. LOW SCORING:
Why are we scoring low (below 110, both games)? This is simple - we're just not hitting the amount of 3-pointers were use to. I want to say that MPJ is being tired out by Miami's offense - but I don't see Miami doing a lot of cutting, and trying to exhaust us. I believe it was the long layoff - our guys lost their 3-point shooting focus. Fortunately, 3-point shooting was better in Game 2 - I expect that to trend up.

2. MIAMI'S ZONE:
Miami has used a very good zone against us - we need to drive inside against that zone, or have Jokic post up. We've actually collected a lot of offensive rebounds against Miami's zone, because the size mismatch gets exposed especially loudly there. When we've had good sequences, we've usually broken up Miami's zone by going inside, leading them to switch to sloppy man-on-man defense.

3. WHY WE LOST GAME 2:
Simple explanation - too many mental mistakes. Jamal had an inbounds go wrong in the 4th, Jokic overthrew Jamal on a pass in the 4th, Jokic offensive fouls, too many fouls against Miami (especially when they beat us inside, for a layup), along with KCP stupid fouls -- overall, I've never seen our team commit so many mental mistakes.

4. WHY MIAMI CAN MAKE 3'S:
Counter to what's being argued here - we actually didn't double-team Butler very much. We did hedge (that cost us) - but for the most part, we left Butler on islands. Miami honestly didn't get very many wide open shots (my apologies on that claim). On most Miami shots, we had a hand in their face. So how did they score? This is where Miami playing so many games has helped - they have great focus. This is going to drop-off, as tired legs set in. But the advantage Miami has of playing more games is their shooting focus is truly better right now (whereas ours was lousy out the gate).

SUMMARY NOTES:
I've not seen too many games where the ref whistles (Bam goaltend, Jimmy out of bounds 3-pointer, etc) went against us so ardently.

So basically, in order to beat us, Miami needed the following:
- Make 3-pointers at an irrational rate with hands in their faces.
- Have Denver commit multiple mental mistakes.
- Have referee whistles heavily favor them, especially in a critical 4th quarter.

If one of those 3 things above doesn't happen, we win. This is not to even include that our intensity was garbage.

I wasn't worried before - I'm worried even less now. Not to say Miami is bad - no - quite a good team that is well-disciplined.

As long as our guys take their guys seriously, come with intensity, and don't f**k AROUND - we're going to win big. Rest easy, all. 

[Miura]

Denver winning tomorrow!!!

[funky]

Denver is winning the next two games.