NBA Finals: Miami Heat Roar Back in Fourth Quarter to Level Series Against Denver Nuggets

In order to tie the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Finals, the Miami Heat overcame a huge 41-point performance from Nikola Jokic. “Our guys are competitors,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Such times are their favorites.”

On Sunday night, Miami triumphed 111-108 thanks to Gabe Vincent’s 23 points, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo’s 21 and 21, respectively.

The heroic feat was not lost on head coach Erik Spoelstra, who said: “Our guys are competitors, they love these kinds of moments”.

Evidently.

His team appeared to be headed for yet another loss as they were trailing by as many as 15 points, eight going into the fourth. Denver had a record of 11-0 in the postseason when in a double-digit lead, so they were not about to relent now.

But it made no difference to The Heat. They took the lead in the first 3:17 of the fourth by outscoring the Nuggets 17-5. With 4:56 remaining in the first quarter, Butler made a jumper to give Miami a 21-10 lead, which tied the second-largest lead any opponent had amassed in Denver so far this postseason.

It vanished suddenly and completely.

Over the course of the next nine minutes, the Nuggets outscored Miami 32-11, turning a double-digit deficit into a lead of at least ten points as a result of a merciless barrage of three-pointers.

Early in the second quarter, Denver made four three-pointers in a span of 70 seconds, scoring more points than Miami did over the course of a nine-minute period. These three-pointers were made by Brown, Jeff Green, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon, all of whom were different players.

The sound of four booms. Denver led 44-32 when the burst of points came to an end, and they were racing towards a second victory thanks to Murray’s five straight points.

Miami argued the opposite. The Heat did, in fact, win by five points or less for the 44th time this season. This one is the largest of them all.

Denver’s loss is significant because it was their first at home in 10 playoff games this year and their first home loss since March 30. Michael Malone, coach of the Nuggets, sounded the alarm, just as he had done after winning Game One.

“Let’s talk about effort,” Malone said. “We’re discussing effort, after all, this is the NBA Finals. I’m very worried about that.

“When I said we didn’t play well in Game One, you guys probably assumed I was making up a plot. This is not the preseason, and we didn’t play well. The regular season is not now. Here we are in the NBA Finals.”

Reference: www.skysports.com