Kudos to Eric Spoelstra and his Miami Heat for their second Eastern Conference championship in the last three years. I don’t think even the most avid Heat fan could have envisioned a blowout win in this game unless it had been one administered by the overhyped Boston Celtics.
In a nutshell it was a glorious re-affirmation of the competence of Pat Riley and Eric Spoelstra and perhaps a dual indictment of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Sadly, for the second straight NBA post-season Tatum and Brown withered when the spotlight was brightest.
Perhaps, we can cut Tatum a bit of slack in that he tweaked his ankle on the game’s first play, but there is no excuse for how poorly Jaylen Brown played when his team neeed him to fill some of the scoring slack created by the injury sustained by Jayson Tatum.
Marcus Smart, Derek White, Big Al Horford, and Robert Williams as well couldn’t score the ball with enough consistency to keep this game interesting against the Miami Heat who are one of the least effective NBA teams in regards to their own offensive efficency. In fact, with the win the Heat become only the third team in NBA history to advance to the Finals with an overall negative scoring differential for the season. I’m not even sure if the Florida Panthers can claim that on their magical ride to the Stanley Cup Finals.
It wasn’t a great night for Joe Mazzulla either as basically what Spoelstra did the entire second half was isolate Jayson Tatum on pick and roll and then expose his inability to defend on a sprained ankle. Basically, Jayson Tatum was the pylon on the wrong side of a bad two on one for the Celtics defense the instant his ankle turned sideways. Space and time.
I have no idea if Brad Stevens keeps Joe Mazzulla as his head coach. At times Mazzulla showed his youth and inexperience, but let’s be fair the NBA is a star driven league and Boston’s top three stars in Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart all somewhat faded for the second straight post season.
On the flip side, Jimmy Butler has played like a stud hoss to get the Heat to these NBA Finals. He has demanded the ball when needed, but seamlessly deferred to Caleb Martin, Bam Adebayo, Gabe Vincent, Kyle Lowery, and Duncan Robinsondepending on score and time…something Russell Westbrook to this day had never figured out. And let’s keep this in mind, Miami has made this run without their second most offensively skilled player in Tyler Herro.
Game 1 of the Finals is in Denver on Thursday night and unless either Jokic or Jamal Murray sustain some type of injury the Heat have some serious issues on how they will slow down the scoring of the Nuggets. Pace will mean a great deal in this series especially for the games being played in Denver with the altitude issues for an Eastern Conference team beeng relevant.
Nugget coach Mike Malone isn’t a thirty-four year old kid at his first rodeo. He’s a capable NBA head coach. He’s already shortened his rotation to seven players depending on if he feels he can put Christian Braun on the court against the Heat.
I would say Denver in six games if I were forced to make a pick. But that’s with none of Denver’s seven rotational players going down with an injury.
We still have the NBA with no team ever in league history coming back from a 0-3 series deficit. Now we will see if Denver can win its first ever NBA championship as the highest seeded team left standing.