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It's Tuesday morning. The second off day between finals games is the series shifts to Miami one to one after arousing Miami heat. Get out to a lead, fall way behind, come back and grind it out. How the hell did that just happen?
That should be the slogan for the heat's playoff run. How the hell did that just happen? The 2022, 2023 Miami heat. You better start believing now.
I want to break down everything about this series. And there is nobody better to do that with than the king of the iPad. A man who somehow illustrated a cheese wheel pursuit race down a hill, I think in Ireland, which it's a good thing my mic was cut off on get up while you were doing that because I was just cackling the one and only long time NBA sharpshooter ESPN personality. Tim Legler, how are you?
What's up Zach? Yeah, that actually the cheese wheel rolling down the hill with a bunch of lunatics trying to grab it was hate to say. One of my favorite segments I've done this year, despite all the NBA stuff I do. That was a lot of fun for sure.
Well, look, people have probably seen that clip. I'm sure it went viral. I was dying laughing the whole time. And the genius of it was, they challenged you to do it.
You didn't have that much time. And obviously you can make fun of the guys who are, I guess is rolling just the fastest way to get that. They were just rolling in all directions. I didn't understand what they were doing.
But you found some guys, by the way Zach, clearly some guys involved in that, that had no interest in catching that cheese whatsoever. They just wanted to tumble down the hill at a high pace. That's what I'm saying. They're tumbling like diagonally away from the cheese, past the cheese, like what are you doing?
But you found these little tidbits like, there's a kid watching. There should be no children near these crazy people. The fence that they've built is clearly not going to contain. It was just great work as good as your NBA work.
How are you doing? I'm good, I'm good. I'm like you, as you just described, kind of sitting here wondering where this is headed. And I thought I had a pretty good idea going into the series where this was headed.
And now as I sit here after game two, I'm not exactly sure because there are some things that Denver has not done that I expect them to be able to do. And now I'm starting to say, well, is it because there's just more there for them, to grab and to play better. There's more margin there that they can make up just in terms of how they play. Or is a lot of this related to what Miami is doing to them and will continue to do to them and present some challenges for Denver.
To answer because I'm kind of surprised at this point. I feel like Denver has played at about 70% of their max. And where is that other 30%? Is it going to come?
Is it going to happen down in Miami? Is it not going to happen at all? Because if it doesn't happen at all, Miami is going to win the series. And I just didn't think that was possible going in.
Yeah, you and Michael Malone both. And you know, Wendy and I did our post game pod from the court in Denver the other day. And you know, one of the big takeaways for me was Denver's defense out of the gates was just like, what are you guys doing? And in particular, I said this already, but the guy that I had my eye on going into game two for Denver is Michael Porter Jr.
Because I thought I haven't watched every Denver game. That was probably the worst I've seen him play all season. It was like MPJ clueless defense from four years ago. Habits that he had kicked.
He only played 26 minutes. I think he drew a tied for season high to angry Michael Malone timeouts within the game and got yanked for Bruce Brown a couple of times. He hasn't shot it well. I think he's a seven of 24 for the series or something like that.
Is he going to bounce back? Or is this all going to spiral? I mean, you've seen it spiral before with guys with, I mean, he's more than a role player, but he's a third option type for them where it just, it can go the other way. He can either bounce back or it can spiral.
So I'm looking at that for the series. Here's where we are. It's been a pretty good offensive series that has been masked by the fact that this is a very slow-paced series so far, which I think is a win for Miami. Keeping Denver out of transition is huge for them.
Living their turnovers only have 19 turnovers in two games. That's huge. The offensive ratings are 118 Denver, 114 Miami. Both pretty good.
Game two was an absolute gangbusters offensive game. Denver is plus eight total points. And the big stat for Miami has always 30 of 74 from three compared to 19 of 55 from Denver. Where do you want to start?
What's the first thing you're going to be looking at in game three? You mentioned stuff Denver isn't doing. Is there a side of the ball you're going to have your eye on? You take over his teller strater mode.
What are you going to be looking for? Here's the thing that is concerning if you're a Denver fan, if you're Michael Malone, it's this. And I think this is why the tone was set by him after the game at his pressure. I mean, it was obvious how irritated he was with his team.
And I'll give him credit, too, by the way, because in today's sports world, coaches don't typically do that. They don't. They find a way to own it themselves. They deflect.
They protect. That's what you do. I mean, go back to even Game Three in the Miami Boston series in Joe Masulo that night when the Celtics just completely quit. And it was what it was all to say repeatedly over and over.
It's on me. I got to do a better job. It's just me. I got to do it.
Because even though the way that he said it, it was clear that he probably didn't even necessarily believe it. But he still did it because it's at all costs. You can't have guys questioning my loyalty to them in locker room. And we could lose guys mentally and all that stuff.
It's not the error that I played in when coaches could say whatever they wanted to be after team. So Michael Malone comes in at pressure, so agitated. And the reason is this, Game One, they gave up a lot of open looks from the 3.1. A ton.
Now Miami did not shoot well. They didn't shoot well in the regular season. So it's kind of OK. This may be actually more about what Miami really is than what they've been to this point in the postseason.
Problem is this, they got the same looks in Game Two. So even though Denver won, and I said that night right after the game ended on SVP, I didn't think Denver played well that night at all. And Michael Malone said the same thing. So if that's how you feel, now you've got a film session, you've got a couple days off, you've got walkthroughs, you now should be cleaning up those areas to take away those looks that they got.
And they didn't. In fact, the quality of looks was even better from the three point line. So for me, if that does not turn, the Denver nuggets are going to lose this series. So that's the first thing I'm going to be looking at.
And here's what I mean by that, Zach. So they made 17 threes. Nine of those, I went back and watched every May 3. Nine of those directly related to a mistake made by the Denver nuggets.
Whether that was two guys not communicating on a screen, who's going to take the ball handler, who's going to take the screener three times, overly zealous, trying to block three point shot attempts by Duncan Robinson and Kevin Love. Like why are you jumping up to the lights on those guys? You don't need to guilty of that. And that's not even taking into account the two times KCP foul three point shooters on horrendous fouls.
So that stuff has to be cleaned up. And the fact that they were still that sloppy with their communications, like for instance, Struce at the beginning of the game, the guys over nine in game one, and you know he's going to keep shooting, right? If anything was certain in game two, it was that Max Struce was going to get some up early. Cause that's what shooters do.
They want to immediately see the ball go in and put that stuff behind them. So if you're Denver, the last thing you can risk is giving a guy the fact that good of a shooter, wide open looks beginning in the game. And they blew three coverages on him in the first six minutes of the game. So for me.
And it wasn't all Michael Porter by way, two of them were, and one of them was, one of them was Aaron Gordon not switching on time, I think, in the right corner, for some reason Jimmy Butler had the ball like 22, 23 feet from the basket, like kind of getting ready to think about attacking. And he just helped by about 10 feet, too much off of Struce. And then they just swung at the streets for one pass, pitch and catch for wide open three. Another one in the left corner, one off of a baseline out of bounds play where Christian Brown did not communicate to Switch with KCP, they ran into each other.
Oh yeah, that's right. Struce comes off of the wide as his first one. First point of the game comes off of the wide open look. So, so my point is you asked, what am I looking at?
And where are we? That has to change. And if that doesn't change, the nuggets are in trouble. I think that's why Mike and one was so irritated.
Because to me, it wasn't as much about effort. It was about sloppiness with communication. That's really what it looked like to me. I don't think guys were out there not playing hard, but they were certainly not locked in to the extent you needed to be in a finals game.
And that is what I'm looking for now to start a game three. The Denver look like they've tightened that stuff up because I think eventually their offense is gonna hon at the rate that it was. I do believe that's coming defensively though, that you got to show me that because that's two games in a row now that you were definitely subpar for where you need to be against a team that is not a great three point shooting team. You cannot make that many mistakes and give guys an additional five, six feet of space.
So for me, that's the biggest takeaway. I wanna start for a second on KCP helping when you didn't need to help. And I've never played in the NBA, obviously. You may be surprised to know that I did make it that far.
So I don't know what it's like to be a perimeter defender away from the ball while a guy like Jimmy Butler has the ball. A holy that dude is awesome kind of guy. Because I'm with you. So to me, the bellwether matchup for Jimmy Butler in the series is KCP.
We know he's gonna bully Murray. We know Aaron Gordon is gonna be pretty much equal to the task against Jimmy. KCP is kind of in between as a switch guy that's gonna get on him. Didn't do it in game one, did it some in game two, went at Murray Moore in game two.
So it's clear from the jump that Jimmy's gonna engage his bully ball mode a little more. He knows he's gotta give a little more from the win this game. You mentioned one three that's true Scott out of what I would have classified as an over-help situation. There was another one when Jimmy had Aaron Gordon on him.
So no switch, no matchup advantage. He was on the right wing and going nowhere, going nowhere. And I can't remember who it was. I think it was Murray just kind of sloughed way over again.
Same thing you're talking about. Just in between, not doubling, but just sort of showing, showing help. And Jimmy just pitched the ball out to his good. Said, oh, you're gonna give me that?
Pitched it to Struce. So now Jamal Murray's gotta sprint out at Struce. Struce pump fakes him, goes, drives and then drops it off the bam for a dunk. And in my notes, I'm like, if it's Aaron Gordon, you just gotta stay home.
You gotta make Jimmy prove he can beat Aaron Gordon. But I don't know what it feels like to be looking over there and be like, dude, that guy's awesome. He's rolling, it's Jimmy Butler. Like I gotta do something.
I don't know what the coach is saying. Like what is that? Because you probably remember that same play and had the same reaction, but it's just so much easier for me to say than it is for Jamal Murray out there. And I'd be like, I can't stand her.
I gotta do something to Jimmy Butler. Yeah, I think for me, and this is, I think just would come from knowing the player and hopefully talk about this. And I'm sure they did. Nothing Jimmy Butler does in an isolation situation is going to be quick.
It's not like you're worried about his first step on a blow by Aaron Gordon, where he's buying him and at the rim finishing. That's not how Jimmy Butler attacks. He's going to probably go one direction, one dribble, stop. Maybe they'll put his back to him, then square him up again, then maybe cross over, go toward the baseline.
And eventually he's either gonna try to get you to some sort of an up fake and go to the rim or he's gonna shoot a mid range, 15, 18 foot shot. But it's not gonna happen, lightning quick. So if you're guarding Strews, you're guarding Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent now probably is in this category because that hell hell he has shot the ball. And you're guarding those guys.
You don't need to overreact to Jimmy Butler sizing a guy up because you have time. If he's gonna get that defender compromised, it's gonna be probably a couple seconds from now. When I start to see how he's going to go and is he gonna spin back? Is he, because he's not one of those guys that just like boom, boom, like James Harden, you know, bang, bang, bang, he's gone.
And now if you're not in that gap, you have not, you've blown an assignment, right? Because there are guys that are that quick off the dribble, Jimmy Butler's not. He's gonna probe you a little bit more. It's gonna take longer to get to his spot.
So you have more time. So you cannot be in a position where you lose contact with those guys to that extent that you can't recover. You know, and then they had, to me, a big stretch of the game beginning in the fourth quarter, they're down eight and none of this is involving Jimmy Butler. Nope.
They basically run action with Duncan Robinson and Gabe Vincent, right? And he run this like a three man on the side sort of set. It's almost like a triangle type configuration. And they're like, okay, they blew three consecutive coverage.
It's first time two guys go with the curlman, Duncan Robinson, both defenders. Don't communicate the screen with both guys run with Duncan Robinson, gave Vincent steps back, bangs a three. All right, let's run that again and see what happens. Next time Duncan Robinson curls, the defender trails, he doesn't get a bump at all.
So Duncan Robinson just catches the ball, lays it in. Then they get to one where they actually defend it, okay, initially the ball goes to the weak side. And then when it comes back to Duncan Robinson, Jamal Murray with a very half hard and upright closeout. And Duncan Robinson blows right by for a three point play.
Yeah, I watched that play like four times. So I was like, how did that just happen? How did Duncan Robinson, did Jamal Murray fly into the crowd? Was he out of control?
Was he compromised on a long rotation? No, he just kind of walked over to Duncan Robinson and Duncan Robinson was like, cool, I'm going to blow by you because you're not really respecting me. Exactly, more of an excuse if he, which just happened also to other guys, if he did fly by him because it's Duncan Robinson and he just hit one. Right now you go.
Okay, he bent on the head fake still, not acceptable, not great defense, but at least he's trying to fly out there that you could test the shooter. He didn't do that. He was caught so off guard by Duncan Robinson's decision to put that ball in the ground that he just looked completely unready. And now he's at the rim to help with a little bit late.
He gets bumped and he is a CS 6-8. So he gets up there, he finishes play three point play. Just like that. All that work you did to close the third quarter when Yokech basically took over there that last few minutes.
And you're in a great position. You're at home. You're up eight. Jimmy Butler's on the bench.
You start the fourth quarter just like that to heat up a two point lead. And now Butler makes some shots late. The closer it does his thing. Kayla Barton finally makes a shot at an important moment.
BAM has a couple of plays. And now the heat end up taking it home. But that was the key stretch. And again, it was caused by just really bad miscommunication on the part of the Nuggets defense.
Like on very innocuous basic stuff that they just did not talk through or did not have the required effort in case of Murray's closeout. So I understood completely why Malone was that irritated and his blood was boiling because he saw a golden opportunity to really take command of this thing, where no one's going to envision Miami winning four and five games. Nobody. Including them, I don't think.
I think that game is an absolute life for that must win. If you're being honest and all those guys take sodium pentathol, right? And you ask them, they're all going to say, now we got a shot if they're down to 0. But now it feels totally different as you go back to Miami because it's a 1-1 Miami now is home court.
And Denver has not proven that they are up to the task defensively yet. And that's the key thing here going forward. Baseball fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows and originals across every ESPN network in service.
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Sign up for activate now. Second straight bad start to the fourth quarter that has to be driving the Nuggets coaches crazy game. One, they keep yokech and Murray on the floor to go for the kill. And Miami goes on a run, some of which is gifted to them by Denver through away a baseline out of bounce pass.
Game two, let's go back to our regular rotation. We'll rest yokech. Oh, that didn't work either. So I'm going to ask you an intentionally leading and facetious question as a sort of a devil's advocate.
We're sitting here talking about mistakes that Denver made in coverage and all that. Let me just put it to you like this. This is a question that a producer on NBA Today asked me in preparation for today's afternoon show. How is Miami generating so many good threes?
Because I can see the Heat fans listening to the first 15 minutes of this conversation say, really, it's all, we're just here because Denver sucked on defense. We don't get any credit for this. So let's flip it the other way. How is Miami doing this?
What are they doing proactively to get so many good threes? You said nine of 17, that's still these eight that are not the result of Denver mistakes. Correct. And those eight of those eight, the majority of those were what I would consider like reasonable basketball help defense.
Because sometimes a guy's driving and you're that one pass away. It's coming towards you. You're going to stunt to get in front of the ball handler, whoever that may be. And then recover out.
And you get there a half account late. Guys, shoot it. It's almost bomb on bomb. And the guy makes a shot.
That's life. That's that's normal team defense. It's what you're taught to be able to get into the gaps and to do that kind of thing. Couple of them, two of them, offensive rebounds.
Offensive rebounds turn into chaos. I call those chaos possessions. And for years, nobody burns you more on chaos possessions than the Warriors. It just felt like every single time they got a long offensive rebound, somebody hit a break.
And so they got a couple off of that. Those are not breakdowns. That's just blue key, the ball bounced to them. And now in recovering, somebody's left open.
And you get that. But here's what the Heat are doing. They are taking advantage of Denver's overreaction. A little bit defensively to Jimmy Butler.
And so your spacing is just a few feet further off shooters than maybe it should be. And it's not like bad defensive in film. It would look like a breakdown. But Miami is taking advantage of that.
And they're making the next pass out of that. Whatever that may be. Now Jimmy had a couple in a game too, where it was directly his pass. Like one time I remember he drove from the right wing in the second half.
He drove along the baseline. And I froze the tape. Just look at that. You're four nugget stirsies.
Four surrounding him right in the restricted area. And he wasn't even looking at the basket. He drove baseline. And then he threw the ball to the opposite wing to game Vincent with nobody within 12 to 15 feet of him.
Like I wouldn't consider that necessarily a breakdown. It's more of an overreaction to Jimmy Butler. That now their space when the ball comes out, longer recoveries. And then if you make the next pass, or if that guy goes into gap and swings, you knock it down.
Look, somebody is good action by the Heat. Like the plays I described with Duncan Robinson and Vincent. It's good action. But it's nothing like that.
You shouldn't see every night in an NBA game if you're Denver. That if you talk it through, are you switching it? Are you hedging it? Who's the priority of the two guys involved in the action?
Like those are the kinds of things that should be worked through way before you're actually in the moment. So give the E credit for they're moving it to the right guy. And the guy that's open is getting it every time. And they're making Denver pay because guys are stepping up and they're making big shots.
Now they didn't shoot great in game one if they had. You know, I don't know if Denver loses the game, but that's probably going to be a one possession game with two minutes to go. If Miami shoots even a decent percentage that night from the three. So yeah, I know how heat fans react to stuff like this.
Oh, it's all about Denver. Don't give us any credit. No, well, the problem is I have to be honest about mistakes. If those are mistakes, that's bad coverage.
You got to point it out and it led to a lot of offense for the heat. And it made things very difficult for the nugget to be able to recover from that. Down the stretch, those were really mistakes. Those were just the heat making big time shots.
I mean, they made some really tough shots in that situation. So give Miami credit for moving it, finding the right guy and the guys having the nerve to step into shots and make them. But I think the majority of what I've seen so far in two games has been more about Denver. Denver is in confidence defensively.
You just said the word nerve. And I'm glad you said it because I keep saying this and it doesn't sound like an amazing compliment, but it is. The best thing you can say about Miami is that they just keep playing. They don't care if the first 17 seconds of the shot clock have gotten them nothing.
They don't care if the crowd is going crazy and they're down on the road and it's the NBA finals. They just don't care. They keep running their stuff. And the more stuff you run, the more chance you have that something is going to hit, that someone's going to miss a rotation, that someone is 18 seconds left on the shot clock.
We haven't got anywhere. Let's give it to Kyle Lowry. Quick pick and roll with Bam. Just dex KCP all of a sudden Kyle Lowry has an open three.
They just never stop cutting, moving, making the extra pass. I thought Butler, the pass is your pointing out with Butler, who's literally under the rim on some of them. I think they discovered in game three or game one. OK, Yoge is going to drop back on Jimmy's pick and rolls.
They're not going to come to the level of the screen like Denver likes to do against shooters and has to do, obviously against Struce and Robinson and all that. Let's see if we can prod in that space a little bit and just kind of slow play some drives, get deep into the paint. Let's see if they bring a third defender over, which they started doing, to try to take away Bam's role to the rim. And Bam, by the way, has been incredible through two games.
Just a monster. Never seen a game out of bioplait better. I've never seen him play better. Endless ferocity and effort.
And let's see if we can kick around and get threes that you're talking about. And I do wonder in game three, if they start hurting them like that, again, well, they bring Yoge a little higher just to see how kind of Miami responds to that. And you can bet Miami's coaches are ready for that and have counters ready like more Bam, more floaters. On the Vincent Robinson play in the left corner that you're describing that they blew twice in a row.
I kind of want to guess that should have been an easy switch between Bruce Brown and Christian Brown. I do want to give Miami some credit for that because something I've noticed throughout the playoffs is, Spose seems to save a couple of things in the playbook and just throw them out out of nowhere in the fourth quarter. Generally, there was a corner pin down action for Kevin Love against Milwaukee that just totally called Milwaukee by surprise in a big game in Milwaukee in that series. Some Bam, like swing dribble handoffs in the corner, come out every once in a while.
That play was like that. It was like all of a sudden, all right, let's rip out page 397 of the heat playbook and see what happens. And I do think they deserve credit for that because Denver was clearly like, whoa, what is this? What's happening?
What should we do? Now, you're right. The second and third time when you see it coming, you should probably have it nailed down by then. But they get these points out of like surprise attacks kind of it.
I think they deserve credit for kind of springing that stuff on the other team. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, there's very few guys in the league that would trust more than Eric Spolster to always, you know, the state of readiness for his team and his mind and the way he's standing there watching the game. And he's got that same stare on his face because he's processing everything.
And some of that stuff he is thinking about potentially what could be run later in the game. And they ran it at exactly the right time when you talk about, must have possessions. You think about it, Zach, if Denver gets a couple of stops, two, three stops there at the start of that order, convert, you got a 15 point game, you know, potentially, they're not recovering from that. So it's amazing that in this game with, you know, the star talent that we have offensive talent that we have, with Jimmy and Yogich and Jamal Murray and even Bam, the way he's playing, you run action for two of your, you know, you're starting point guard and role playing three point shooter.
And because they make great reads and they take advantage of miscommunication, they get themselves right back in the game. That's the trust level that I've always talked about with Eric Spolster and a guy like me, how much I would have loved to have played for a guy like Eric Spolster because I appreciate so much how he values guys for what they do well. And he takes it upon himself to hide their weaknesses and doesn't judge them based on the weaknesses and overreact to their weaknesses, surfacing, right? And take their confidence away.
He you're on the floor. And this is what I think you do well to help our team. I'm going to let you do it as much as you want. I'm going to literally and stuff you don't do as well.
I'm going to do everything I can to come up with a game plan and the way we play to protect you from that stuff, whether it's handling the ball against pressure or defensive match ups. I'm not going to lead you in an island by yourself. But on the other end of the floor, I'm absolutely going to value you for what you do. And I could run that at any time that could be, you know, in the middle of the second quarter or could be right now with maybe our season on the line.
And I'm going to trust you two guys to go run this right now. We need an important shot to be made and they get it. So it's because of the belief they have in him, the empowerment he's given them and the confidence level they have. And sometimes it even when a guy hasn't played a little while, hasn't we touched the ball?
Hasn't we touched the ball? Duncan Robinson said after the game, did it or did he say, well, to that point I've really done nothing so far in the series. So, you know, I'm glad I was able to contribute in a big way. And it's a lot of teams, a lot of guys mentally would not have stayed ready for that.
And it's because they know that Spo believes in them and at any time he could call their name and call their number and the belief system is there. And the mutual trust factor is there. And I think that makes guys more confident in that moment. Spo also pulled the adjustment of starting Kevin Love over Caleb Martin, which to me, you know, that was somewhat about more size on the floor.
Obviously we're going to take away the Aaron Gordon post-ups that just matched us. A trickle down effect of that was Jimmy Butler guards Jamal Murray. I thought his defense on Jamal Murray was really good. And a trickle down of that is Jamal Murray is sometimes stuck on Jimmy Butler.
If you can't get the match up, switch back the way you want him. And it just gave Jimmy more chances. Like I don't even have to run anything. I've got Jamal Murray already.
I thought that adjustment worked across the board. We'll I assume they'll stick with it. We'll see if they have to swap back at any point in the series. Before we move on to Denver's offense, what would you do with Tyler Hero?
If he's ready to play in this series, what should he do? I mean, I think you play. He's the second best creator. Right?
He can get places on the floor with the ball. He's obviously very good offensive player, defensively a little bit more of a challenge. But there's a spot for him. I mean, if he says he's ready to go and I'm hearing that his hands swelled up a little bit and sore.
If he doesn't have full range of motion with freedom of movement and like for the most part pain free, I don't know if you play him. Like because he's going to be limited. And if he's limited and he's not going to be an impact defensively, do you just go kind of stand pop? But if he says he's good to go and the risk feels great and he's making shots leading up to the game and he's no limitations, how do you not give him a shot to play?
Because he's that good offensively. You don't know what that could bring to your team in this series, particularly a streaky as some of these guys have been. I mean, Caleb aren't right now, clearly does not have confidence and just has not injected himself into the series coming out of the last series. You know, it's kind of surprising that did not carry over to a certain extent.
You know, streets plays great in the first half of game two. Oh, for 10 in game one, who knows what that looks like in game three? Does he miss his first five threes and you got Tyler here? Are they sitting there?
So I think it's almost a little bit situational, but I do think you play him and kind of see. And he's out there six minutes and he's just kind of out there. He's not really himself trying to make stuff happen. And as an aggressive offensive player, you probably don't go back to him.
But I don't think if he says he's ready to go and they look like they believe he's ready to go before the game, I don't think he make the predetermined decision. Oh, you're not going with him because I really like what we got going on right now. He's too good of an offensive player to do that to totally agree with everything. You just said, this is the series where his pull up jump shooting, I think would be most valuable since the Milwaukee series when he got hurt in the first round because of the way Milwaukee plays their drop back defense against you.
Okay, so it's just useful to have a guy who can make pull up jumpers. And maybe it's just as simple as you mentioned that fourth quarter. I mean, season on the line is not an exaggeration for that stretch. If they go if that instead of cutting into that lead, it becomes, you know, Denver by 13 when Jimmy Butler comes back in the game, that may be curtains and maybe just those are the minutes for Tyler here.
Like Jimmy Butler Jimmy Butler's resting. We got to find some offense. Swing four minutes for us. Give us a four minute win that can turn this from a loss into a win.
Maybe that's what it is. I do think if he's ready and Ros gold on who they was I think the first or a port that he's experiencing swelling and soreness. If that's the case and like you said, he's got to be full go with that right hand shooting, passing, picking it up all that. If he's not, it's a different story.
Let's flip sides of the court. Spaux drew a strong reaction from his strong reaction to our colleague Ramona Shelburne's question about turning the Cola Yolkich into a scorer and not a passer. Yolkich had 41 points on 16 of 28 from the floor. Four assists after 14 in game one.
Five turnovers. How would you describe what Miami is doing defensively? Because on paper, it didn't work. Denver's offense had 125 points per 100 possessions, which is like way better than the best offense in the league.
But with Yolkich on the floor, it was only 111 per 100 possessions, which is below average. So they did something. Is there truth to the tournament to a scorer thing? Is that what it is?
What are they actually doing? So as a combination of what Miami did and some of it falls again on Denver, I don't think their off ball movement was nearly the same. And what I mean by that is typically when Yolkich has the ball and he's operating at the elbow or that short wing or in the post. And he has the basketball and he starts to do the back down dribble.
There's stuff going on usually on the other side of the floor. Oh, there's a there's a there's a back screen with a cut down the lane. And then there's a flare screen out of that. Guys continue to come over for dribble handoffs because he loves running the dribble handoff when he's at like even after he starts to back down and he gets to like 12 feet, he will pick that thing up and see somebody coming, flip it, screen, dive, give somebody a short pull up or maybe hit him rolling to the basket or reverse it because everybody, you know, converges over to that action.
They weren't doing that. It was like he got the ball in certain spots. He started to go and then everybody sort of watched him on Denver's team. For Miami, that meant easier to like fix not fix not but like I'm not getting too far off of these guys because I'm not going to let him though these these bullet passes because he throws it with great velocity to the opposite side of the floor or from the post to the top of the key.
And I always talk about velocity. Passers. I played with some great players, great guards that didn't give you the ball with velocity. And that meant now I'm taking a really tough contested shot against the six seven dude jumping out at me as opposed to that extra half account.
That means this ball is going in for sure. Right? That's what velocity means because it's just harder to close out in time. So they decided they're not going to give them that stuff.
And let's see what happens. And then it just kept he just kept on getting himself into the lane turning and for the most part scoring. I don't think he necessarily wants to play that way. In fact, I know he doesn't.
But Miami and Eric Spolce can say, you know, to the untrained eye, I think my eye is pretty trained. I mean, I know I kind of know what I'm watching defensively. They were able to stunt and kind of stay home because there was not as much activity going on with the other players when Yoko Chadda Ball. And so part of that Yoko probably recognized it and was like, okay, well, it's upon me right now.
Like this is a critical moment, a critical game. In the second half of that game, I am going to now take advantage of what's here for me, which is going to be scoring on Bam or scoring on Zeller. And I'm going to get to these spots and score. So I think it was a combination of maybe not Miami saying, okay, you know what, let him shoot as many times as you want for staying home to shoot.
I don't think it was like that. I think that's what Eric Spolce was talking about. That's the tone of a question like that or like the narrative around it is. Oh, well, let him score.
And we're going to stay on the other guys. So that conversation probably never took place. That's what he's basically saying. But to say that in the moment, the defense wasn't aware that these guys aren't really doing a whole lot.
And I'm not going to allow them to kind of inject themselves into it by overselling out to Yokech. Now somebody gets a wide open free because I left. Let's see what this guy's going to do. And even though he was having success as a scorer, they did not change that up.
Absolutely. They was a different approach to Yokech because of that. Going forward now, it's going to be interesting to see what Denver does to adjust to that. I think you're going to see much more player movement in game three off the ball.
Because I just don't think that was even close to the best version of what I watch never do this year, offensively. I cosign everything. I kind of totally rejected both before and after game two. The idea that you could just quote, let Yokech score.
And I said, because he will score 50 and you will lose. And that part of it, I stand by. Like if you just if you just give him back to the basket touches and don't help, he's going to get a layup or a foul literally every single time. And so part one of Miami's game plan against him is don't let him get post touches at all.
Front him. Take those entry passes away. And they've been awesome at that. You don't have an approach.
If you're if you're trying to just not even let him get the ball, obviously your approach is not turn him into a scorer. It's just don't even let him get the ball. And Bam has been amazing fronting the post. And then even if Yokech gets the ball, then you see the kind of half stunts you're talking about.
If he gets the ball to his back to the basket, they're not just leaving him alone. They're kind of digging in and coming back out, digging in and coming back out. And the heat are awesome at that. And it keeps you guessing and it keeps you confused.
And I totally agree with you about their movement. There was a play I think always in the second quarter where Yokech got a post touch against Zeller. And boy, it would be interesting to see when and how we see Cody Zeller again in the series and whether they just try to match Bam's minutes to Yokech's minutes, which would in turn require probably changing Jimmy Butler's substitution pattern either here nor there. Enter the ball to Yokech.
Michael Porter Jr. is standing four feet away from Jamal Murray at the top of the arc and doing nothing. And Jamal Murray, you can see waves from Michael Porter get away from me and go to the corner, man, you're just chilling out here. You're not useful.
And Michael Porter Jr. goes to the corner. They dig off of him, halfway there, not a hard double team. Yokech gives him the ball.
He drives it. He has a wide open pocket past Yokech like wide open doesn't make it. I thought he was awful in that sense too. Takes an extra dribble, then tries to make the same pass in traffic.
They knock it away. It goes like a hundred feet in the air. That's the kind of movement I think they're talking about. But to Miami's credit, when he does get post touches, they are not just swarming him.
And if they do swarm him, it's A at the last minute when he's making his move to the basket, then they'll send help. Or if it's a big defender like Butler, who's got range and is one pass away, they will help some in the post. There was like one play. It was maybe the most interesting play of the game to me.
It was on the right wing in the first half. It was a crazy sequence where they post Yokech on band. They get him a post touch. They extricate him from the fronts that are really hard to extricate him from.
Murray is on the right wing. Enter the ball to Yokech. Yokech starts back and bam down. It's about to be an emergency.
Jimmy comes on what is pretty much a hard double team off of Jamal Murray. One pass away. Yokech gives the ball back up. And on the fly, Jimmy is there in Jamal Murray's face.
And on your passing point, if you look at the tape, the pass is low and to the left. And Murray has to crouch down to catch it. And that is the difference between a three point shot and nothing. And then they re entered it to Yokech and he did a bunch of crazy stuff.
Bamb block the shot. You recovered it. You scored. But they're just to me, it's not let Yokech be a scorer.
It's try to confuse them. Don't give up open threes. Sometimes don't even let him get the ball. Sometimes play zone and mix in all of that enough that they just can't get in their rhythm.
Like even the fronting, which has been really effective, the nuggets have also beaten that several times. Like just driving right at it. Like a band's in front of Yokech. He can't get to the back side in time.
KCP had to drive. They helped off Aaron Gordon, alley up to Aaron Gordon. But Miami's also winning some of those same sequences when Denver tries to do that drive the front like that. Their rotations are on point.
And sometimes it's just like pass pass pass. Okay, reset nothing happened. It's an interesting battle. There is some truth to the we're going to make him operate when he gets the ball with his back to the basket.
We're not going to make the passes easy for him. And if he scores some, that's okay. There's also full on five alarm emergency fronting defense. We don't even want this to get the ball.
So there was something to Ramona's question. And there was something also to expose answer that it's not that simple, but there is something they're just not going to give him easy passes. Denver is going to have to earn some of those easy passes. Yeah.
And also our exposure to whatever extent they did discuss it isn't going to admit that. Obviously, there's only about a know that. So I get where he's coming from on that. And look, the theory that just, you know, I just don't have a score.
He wants to he shot the ball 30 times twice in the Phoenix series. And he scored 92 points. So, so and in one of those games, he had like 13 assists too. So like he's that good that even if you made the mentality and made the conscious decision.
We're going to force him to do something that makes himself conscious, which he shoot the ball four times in a row in the paint. He's still good enough to beat you with his passing. If their motion around him is good. And like one thing I noticed the game too, and I did a touchscreen on Van Pelle after game one that focused on Yokech's passing and particularly as it relates to off the ball, when he's got the ball either in the short eyes or the post.
One area, Zach, he didn't touch the ball very much in game two with his face to the basket between the elbows and the top of the key in that area. Like that's where that's when he's at his best on the night, we marvel at these ridiculous stat lines and he's just doing everything. It's when he's got the ball in that area of the floor a lot. And he's he's hitting guys that are making dives off back screens or he's taking off the top of key looking at the right corner, throwing the ball in the left corner on a rope or a guy to get a three when he's running multiple dribble handoffs on the same possession.
Like nobody runs double hand off going to Yokech in the league. It's a massive weapon for them because his shoulders are as wide as a table I'm sitting at. And it's very difficult for defenders to get around that, particularly when he's running it with Murray, because you can't go under, he'll stop and shoot the three. So you have to trail him.
That's such a huge part of what they do. And then Murray will come off tight and turn in. And then Yokech's man will dive there and then Yokech will step back and top of the key and he'll shoot it or drive it and kick. There was very little of that action in the second half of the game.
It was mostly Yokech backing guys down. That's the adjustment that Denver's going to make. They need to see Yokech in that area of the floor that makes him truly special and unique with his vision when everything's in front of him. And they didn't get into that enough in game two and Miami took advantage of that and gave him some more back to the basketball opportunities.
If he was willing to take a go ahead, you're not going to gut us by making us look foolish, trying to chase the ball with your passing. And that's kind of what Denver made easier for them to do. So he'd credit, but Denver did make it easier to accomplish that. And if you don't think that he sent any help to him and just let him be a scorer, just watch one play when they did run the kind of stuff you're mentioning from the first half.
He got the ball center of the foul line against Bam back them down. And here comes Kevin Love on basically a double team. And he just lobs it to Aaron Gordon for a wide open alley of dunk. Like that was helped.
That's a double team. That's he's going to be a passer. And I do think the other thing on if love is going to guard Aaron Gordon, I think they need to have Aaron Gordon be more involved just in stuff in the movement. You'll catch got one floater on a you'll get Gordon inverted pick and roll.
Have him set back screens for Jamal Murray. Like you got to make Kevin Love move his feet and kind of hunt them down a little bit in that way. What else are you looking for from Denver's offensive? Well, you talked about you talked about this pace and series that definitely plays the Miami's advantage.
And like one of the things that you know, you love about Denver watching them this year and in the past few years, their initial push make or miss. They get the ball out of the net net so fast and they put so much pressure on you initially that you force guys to sprint back to the lane. And now secondary offense kicks in and they're the best in the league at that secondary break leading to a quality shot. Hasn't been a big factor so far in this series that the pushes that Denver's gotten have typically come off of turnovers.
And they even got it last night when they pushed that lead out. That was mainly because of getting turnovers. Christian Brown almost had like two steals and eight almost steals in like three minutes. The energy he gave them and the athleticism right and it was and that's how they pushed that's how they pushed it out.
The one stretch they had of running but that normally he became Gary Payton for a second. Like you just couldn't have the ball around him. It was like what happened? Yeah, it was it really was amazing.
He was a magnet there for a minute. Everything at one end of the floor involved Christian Brown. It was incredible. But they usually can do that back off defensive rebounds or made baskets.
They only got the opportunity to do it off of turnovers. That's not really who Denver has been. Now look, some of that's Miami and one of the things that Miami probably does as well as any team in the league is get five guys back behind the believe there. I don't even know how they do it sometimes.
It's like it seems like it's chaos and then they have a force field around the paint and you get nothing like it's crazy. Give up on anything and they just it's almost like they don't want to be the guy in the film session tomorrow. I love that. Okay, they don't want to be that guy.
And look, and some of those film sessions can be brutal and live. They always say film doesn't lie. Boy, is that true about that particular thing specifically? Are you in a dead sprint or are you not?
And so it's almost like they feed off each other in that way and they always get back in front of the ball. And if they're not, they're making sure they're sprinting to the level that that next guy is not getting the secondary shot because now I'm going to run to catch up to you. So give them credit. But I think that again, a lot of what we're talking about here are areas in which I think Denver has not played up to their capabilities.
What we don't know yet is to what extent that's Miami's doing to what extent is that Denver? And we're going to find out I think a lot more about this series game three. I think game three is going to tell us everything we need to know maybe even the first half of game three might tell us because I'm looking pretty specific areas in which Denver can be so much better based on what I've seen them do this year at their best. And if they can't get there and it's half time to game three and it's they're down six or it's you know, 54 48 type game.
Now you start to have real concerns like can they actually win this series because this is now two and a half games and they haven't figured it out. So I'm really fascinated. I can't wait to watch the first half of this next game. I picked Denver in six.
So do I Miami has answered the can they win this series question already? The answer is yes. Like game two was proof. I was waiting for that proof because I was after game one.
I was a little worried for Miami's behalf. I'm done now they can win the series. They've been walking, they've been New York, they've been Boston, they're one one against Denver. They're the only team that's beaten Denver on the road.
Whatever they're doing, they're just finding ways and taking advantage of every opportunity. And their transition defense, we mentioned how good it was. They also only have 19 turnovers. That's helpful.
Their center is super duper fast in BAM. That's helpful. So you'll get just can't beat guys down the floor and they're not selling out for offensive rebounds and compromising themselves and falling over. And let's be real like if the Lakers were a better transition defense team, they get a game in that series at least like transition defense literally created a sweep in that's your Denver was better.
Denver was gonna win that series regardless. That's a more competitive series that the Lakers play transition defense with the ferocity and attention to detail that Miami do. What did you think of Denver's defense on the Murray-Yolgich two man game two? What was different other than maybe it really was just Jimmy Butler being on Jim O'Moury.
But what struck you about that? Yeah, I know I actually think that's probably the biggest difference is Jimmy Butler. And that's why even on the last play, last possession, right? So Denver gets the rebound.
They don't call time out. And that's two schools of fault on that. Everybody's got their opinion. And for me, if I've got, and I don't know exactly how much time was on the clock when they got that rebound 12 seconds.
11.1 seconds. Yeah, 11.1. You got two timeouts down three. I'm taking a time out.
That's my personal philosophy because you're hunting a three at that point. If you walk that ball up the floor, and you don't call time out, by the time you get up into the scoring range, and one screen is set, now you 100% have to shoot a three. If you take the ball out with 11 seconds to go down three, number one, you can dictate the action. And I'm gonna get back to the question you asked me about Jimmy Butler on it.
And why? This is a more interesting topic. Why it pertains to it. So if you now you can dictate, taking the ball side out so many things as an offense, who's where, what action you run, what switch or communication are you trying to force?
Okay. That could potentially lead to a better look or a better matchup if it ends up being something off the dribble. Other thing is, down three, 11 seconds to go, you didn't just burn off four or five seconds to get the ball to the floor. You have the opportunity to catch the ball, put your head down, get to the rim and make it a one point game with six, seven seconds to go.
Okay, you can extend the game. Well, now maybe then if you found it, they make one out of two. Now it's a two point game or the last possession of the game where three could win it. So I just felt like with that much time, man, and you're going for a three all that time you burned up getting the ball up the floor, just wasted time.
You just lost all that time to get something better. If you're looking for a three or potentially get it to, cut it to one and there's plenty of time with 11 seconds to go taking the ball side of bounds to do that. So for me, it would have been time out. I'm not gonna question a guy that's coaching an NBA finals.
I've never coached a head coaching an NBA game. That's just my philosophy. Here's the thing is why it pertains to what you asked me. Look at the switch that they got.
That good for Denver. They set a street and Jimmy Butler ends up on the ball. They had gave Vincent on the ball. Why is that better for Denver?
Because they didn't dictate terms by getting guys position where they wanted them to try to see who they wanted to attack to potentially get a better switch. Some switches are not advantageous to the offense. That was not an ad. Now, look, and everybody out there listening to it and I'm sure all the Denver people are like, Oh, we got a great shot.
You're right. That's a makeable shot. Jamal Murray absolutely capable of making a step back three going left. He just made two threes, you know, otherwise quiet night.
He did have a couple of big shots there in the last couple of minutes. Jimmy Butler time that contest pretty good. And if you're Jamal Murray and you got Jimmy Butler on you and he's six, six and you know he's athletic. Part of that weighs into your mind too on the clothes out.
I'm just telling you, depending on who's in front of you, even a great contest. The shooter has infinitely more confidence because of who's standing in front of them. And I'll take you back to Kyrie Irving, the game winner in the finals against Golden State. There's a reason he wanted Steph and not Clay.
And that's a you look at the shot. Steph Curry contested that well, it doesn't matter. Steph Curry could have been draped inside Kyrie or he's Jersey. Kyrie or he's saying himself, it's Steph Curry.