The moving 4th quarter gave the title to the strongest team, the Nuggets.
– A series so far never really under discussion, not even after the victory of the Miami Heat at the Ball Arena in Colorado in game 2. Coach Spoelstra’s men in Game 5 are called to a feat that only LeBron’s Cavs have done in history, trying to overturn a 1-3. To achieve this, Spoelstra still relies on Love from the beginning, Malone also insists on his typical quintet. The beginning of the game is made up of partial and counter-partial: 12-0 Nuggets son of cut baskets and 11-2 Miami with dribble hand off by Abedayo and conclusions by Strus. The first half, in general, sees only one player truly living up to his maximum potential: Bam Adebayo he puts in 18 with 8/13 from the field, despite an attack by Denver who tries to remove him from the paint by exploiting Jokić as a passer and not as a scorer;
– Defining Denver’s game 5 as wet powder would be a wonderful understatement: in the first two quarters the Nuggets recorded 1/15 from 3 and 3/8 free throws. “They don’t even score with their hands,” say the good ones. How then to explain the only 7 points of disadvantage at the interval? The data on offensive rebounds (5-6 for Miami), and the steals-loss balance (+2 Miami, -7 Denver) are only a partial explanation. Denver shoots less, shoots worse, defends with very little discipline, not so much in terms of communication but in terms of individual choices. Neither the numbers nor the tension control in both halves should allow Denver to stay in the game after all. The reality is that even on the other side, physical efficiency is at a flicker: Jimmy Butler is paying the bill for a run Playoffs expensive like few others in history, and is playing as if he had a very heavy flannel jacket that limits his explosiveness. Miami isn’t doing much better at shooting after all (15/34 in the box, 26.7% from 3), and Bam Adebayo is not the first violin able to dominate a Playoffs match offensively, let alone match 5 of the Finals;
– The third quarter, if possible, is the further extension of an agony that has lasted since the beginning of the game. Miami doesn’t have the strength to attack the iron (0 free throws attempted in the quarter), Denver just minimizes turnovers but fails to trigger beyond the arc at all. An applause for the preparation of Spoelstra’s defensive match, assuming that there is still a need. Below are all the different ones coverages faced by Jokić and his companions in the third fraction: man/man changing on all blocks; zone 2-3 with doubles on Jokić; zone 1-3-1 which turns into zone 2-3 when the Serbian opens beyond the arc to receive; zone 2-3 which becomes a man in case there is a cut without the ball in the center of the area; zone 3-2 which turns into zone 2-1-2 with Adebayo at the fore who drops to the free throw line when a cut from the guard would like to receive the nail; zone 2-3 which turns into 3-2 when the ball is first tipped wide. It certainly cannot be said that Spoelstra fails to mask all the technical and athletic limitations of his team, and the shooting night in Denver is allowing him to continue to propose non-man defenses even against Nikola Jokić, perhaps the best player in the world in the ‘attack the zone according to NBA rules. Despite this Denver regains the lead in scoring for the first time since 18-16 in Q1 after 3 consecutive offensive rebounds and 6/9 free throws, indicative of who is the most very much in the field;
– There was a game for the first 3 quarters, there’s another one in the last quarter, summa of all the emotion that the most unbalanced Finals of the last decade can arouse. Jokić and Murray shoot 7/10 on aggregate, up until then one limited by fouls and the other by a vision of the game clouded by tension. there is theJimmy Butler’s personal 8-0 which brings the Heat ahead to 87-86, in a game in which he probably had only one cartridge available and he kept it for the decisive moment, the one in which to emerge from the surface of the water and bite the prey like one shark sniffing blood. There are the last two really decisive possessions of the game, the offensive rebound by Bruce Brown who hands the reins of the game back into the hands of Denver and the reading of Butler’s pass line by Caldwell-Pope, who makes free throws on the following transition of the bracket. In the end it is 94-89a score that would usually smile on the Heat but this time it means Ring for Denver, the first in history of the Nuggets;
– One could argue about Tyler Herro’s failure to re-enter the Heat rotations, indulging in the logic of not risking a relapse of the hand injury and thus denying providing a credible alternative to an attack managed for several minutes of the game and the series by GabeVincent. One could discuss the mismatch hunting by Jimmy Butler, lethal in the 3 previous play-off series and deficit in these Finals (why insist on isolations against Murray and no longer look for substitutions to attack KCP or MPJ?). This is not the time for trials. This is the moment of the Denver Nuggets title celebrationthe result of a roster with a thousand resources, in which each piece has continuously changed its role, task and hierarchy without flooding the engine (Michael Porter Jr., a 41% 3-point shooter in the Regular Season who despite his 4/28 in the series has recycled from cutter and factor to offensive rebound), led by one of the least pairs glamour e catchy of the history of the NBA but who, like it or not, marked an era of American basketball. From Stockton-to-Malone to Jokić-to-Murray-and-vice-versa.