Article Recommendation
Before delving into my personal take on Game Five and the NBA playoffs in general, I want to recommend DJ Dunson's "Nikola Jokic made a monkey of Heat culture" published June 13 by Deadspin. It's an entertaining piece that begins by comparing Jokic to Babe Ruth and rolls on with half a dozen great riffs and observations. I don't exactly agree with everything Dunson writes, but I love the way he wrote it. Really entertaining.
Game Five
Well, I talked up the Heat and Nuggets prior to Game Five, so of course they went out and got all raggedy. A lot of turnovers, including some dumb ones, and questionable shot selection/distribution from both teams, but the intensity was there from start to finish.
Butler shrugged off a rough opening three quarters to give Miami a chance down the stretch. Denver, meanwhile, managed its way through myriad early foul trouble that created uncomfortable and rare court combinations during the first half. Christian Braun trying to guard Lowry was horrific, but somehow Denver arrived at halftime with a chance.
Officiating
Ten years from now, when AI is doing three-dimensional evaluation of what should or should not be called, we'll all know badly teams got the worst of it in these games. For the series, all I'll say is that the officiating did not favor Denver. In Game Three, when Miami halved an insurmountable deficit in the final five minutes, the Heat were beneficiaries of four to five calls/non-calls which were egregious. In this Game Five, again down the stretch, the Heat benefited from roughly a three call/non-call advantage. Butler drawing three foul shots, and the call not being overturned, was ridiculous. I'm sure the NBA would have preferred a Game Six and Game Seven, but a little massaging didn't get them there. The foul situation during the first half was bad enough as it compromised Denver's rotation, but the Nuggets managed their way through it, although not in a pretty fashion.
Kudos to Both Teams
Miami played a lot more zone Game Five, and it worked well. The zone principles suckered Denver into launching a lot of threes at the wrong times. They were reasonably good open threes, but not optimal shot distribution. How Braun wound up trying to guard Lowry a bunch of first half possessions is between God, the Nuggets coaching staff, and whatever they were smoking in that rarified atmosphere.
Congrats to the Nuggets, a middling regular-season defensive squad, for turning up the defensive intensity during the playoffs. Braun/Lowry aside, they had very few stretches of questionable or sloppy defense. Their length across the board played a role. Many of the tweener shots favored by Butler were more difficult because size was everywhere.
It was a really good series.
Bob Dietz
June 13, 2023
