Our Best Bet For Game 3 Of The NBA Finals

Perhaps after 22 playoff games over the last two months, we’d stop counting this Miami Heat team out when their backs are against the wall.

The Heat has been tabbed as heavy underdogs since they trailed the Bulls with three minutes to go in an elimination play-in game, and all they have done time after time is find a way.

Like clockwork, with most of the basketball world counting them out after a decisive loss at the hands of the Nuggets in Game 1, the Heat managed to escape the Mile High City with an enormous Game 2 victory.

They trailed by 15 points in the first half. They trailed by 8 points entering the fourth quarter. They didn’t have an answer in slowing down Nikola Jokic’s scoring.

Yet none of that mattered. Once again, the Heat just found a way.

Nuggets Hope to Make it a ‘Way Back Wednesday’ to 2014

The NBA Finals shift back to Miami for the first time since 2014 when the Heat would eventually lose both home games in decisive fashion to a very motivated Spurs team still steaming in anger from a heartbreaking Finals loss the year before.

And maybe there are some parallels between the 2014 series and the 2023 NBA Finals.

The 2014 NBA Finals saw the Spurs dominate in Game 1, trip up in a close home loss in Game 2, and then flip the switch and ensure no such close losses would occur again.

For the Nuggets to repeat the Spurs blueprint from 9 years ago, they will need better performances from the likes of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., and they will need to figure out a solution in defending the three – as the Heat has had an abundance of wide open looks from downtown in the first two games of this series.

The latter of these two issues is the main difference between the Nuggets having a 2-0 series lead and building expectations of a quick series win, and a series tied at 1 with the heavy underdog feeling a lot more confident at this point in the series.

Can Mike Malone make the necessary adjustments to limit Miami’s success from downtown?

In Game 1, the Heat did struggle from three-point range, but it had little to do with Denver’s defensive effort as the Heat role players collectively went ice cold despite having numerous open looks.

In Game 2, the Heat shot a ridiculous 17-of-35 from downtown with many of those attempts again coming with not a lot of pushback from the Nuggets defense.

Nikola Jokic will in all likelihood be an unstoppable force once again in Game 3, the Nuggets need their supporting cast and a bit stingier perimeter defense to pair with that.

All You Need is Love

Maybe the biggest change from Game 1 to Game 2 came with Erik Spoelstra re-inserting Kevin Love into the Heat starting lineup.

Love did not play a single minute in Game 1, and was sidelined in Games 6 and 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals as the Heat made lineup adjustments to fend off a ferocious attempt at a series comeback by the Celtics.

However, Game 1 quickly showed that Miami going with a smaller lineup posed all sorts of issues in defending an explosive Nuggets attack.

Enter Kevin Love.

Love alleviated some of those glaring defensive holes by taking on Aaron Gordon and helping Bam Adebayo on the glass.

The end result is that Jimmy Butler could then take on the duties of defending Jamal Murray, and by slowing down Murray’s explosiveness, the Nuggets’ 1-2 deathblow punch of Jokic and Murray was at least tempered for the night.

Jokic did still manage to score 41 points, but Murray was only able to chip in 18 points and did most of his damage on the night passing the ball back to Jokic.

Now that the Nuggets have seen this wrinkle in action and have had an additional 2 days to prepare for it, it will be very interesting to see if this lineup change has the same impact in Game 3.

Nuggets – Heat Game 3 Best Bet

While the Nuggets have been a force of nature on their home floor during this NBA postseason, away from the Mile High City they have looked a bit more vulnerable.

After their Game 2 loss, Denver is now 9-1 at home in these NBA Playoffs, but is just 4-3 on the road.

Miami is a very respectable 7-3 at home during this remarkable postseason run, and while this doesn’t sound like a scientific take or one rooted deeply in analytics, sometimes you just have no other reason to back a side than for the fact they’re playing really good basketball right now.

Ultimately, the Nuggets will likely win a road game or two in this series, but the Heat have found a way time and time again since mid-April and it’s hard to go against them now.

Best Bet: Heat +3.5 (Play Up To +2.5)