Nuggets turn tables on Heat, romp to win
DENVER And then there will be the nights like Tuesday, when the shots aren’t falling, when there are no easy ways out.
To a degree, that at least allowed the Miami Heat to go to school on the 109-89 loss to the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center that opened this threegame trip.
Coming off a shockingly dominant 129-100 victory Sunday over the Houston Rockets at AmericanAirlines Arena, when the lead crested at 41, there this time was a doubledigit deficit in the second period and a 20-point deficit in the third.
“They had us on our heels the entire game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
“It just didn’t look team.’
Like the Nuggets, the are a single-star team largely on the depth of roster.
In this one, neither of the leading men were particularly dominant, Jimmy Butler with 16 points for the Heat, foulplagued Nikola Jokic with nine for the Nuggets.
Five degrees Tuesday’s game: of like
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Heat built their from 1. Attention getters: The problem with arriving at 5-1 and at the top of the Eastern Conference is that there is no flying under the radar.
“Obviously they’re playing at a very high level,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “They’re doing it with a lot of guys that nobody has ever heard of.”
He respectfully cited Kendrick Nunn and Duncan Robinson as examples, before going out and stifling anyone not named Butler.
“I don’t think any of us, including the staff, were ready tonight,” Spoelstra said.
2. More perspective: Similarly, Spoelstra said it was significant for his team to distance itself from Sunday’s blowout of the Rockets.
“Hopefully,” he said, “you have a maturity as a team to understand that every night is a totally different challenge.”
The Nuggets, with far more cohesion than the Rockets, certainly were a testier proposition, with 89 points by the end of the third period, pushing the Heat with pace, pounding them in the paint.
3. Revised rotation: With Justise Winslow and Derrick Jones Jr. back from injuries, Spoelstra moved Winslow back into the starting lineup and played Jones as his second reserve.
That had Robinson, who started and scored 23 points Sunday, shuttled back to a 10th-man role. It also removed James Johnson from the rotation a game after he made his season debut. Johnson did not enter until the closing minutes.
There remains some question as whether Winslow and Butler can be at their facilitating best in the same unit, with both limited in their playmaking against the Nuggets.
it: To his credit, even while struggling with his shot, Butler played in attack mode, offering somewhat of a James Harden-esque stat line.
He ended the third quarter with the unique stat line, with his 16 points built on 3-of-12 shooting from the field and 10 of 12 from the line.
5. Leonard time: The Heat arguably were at their best in the opening period when they played through center Meyers Leonard.
Leonard closed the first quarter with 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting. That also was the extent of his contribution.
“You can’t predetermine, particularly a player like Meyers, who facilitates, spaces the floor for us, helps our offense run, but we’re not necessarily running plays for him,” Spoelstra said.