FIVE THINGS TO WATCH
1 Experience matters
If the Heat holds one advantage over the Nuggets heading into their championship series, it’s simply the fact that Miami’s been here before. Not only is this the first NBA Finals trip for Denver, it’s the first for all but two Nuggets (Kentavious Caldwell-pope and Jeff Green). All told, Miami has 72 games of Finals experience compared to 10 for the Nuggets.
But that comes with a couple of caveats: 1. More than half of those games (42) belong to reserves Udonis Haslem (27) and Kevin Love (15), neither of whom played a minute of the conference finals; and 2. Another significant chunk (24) is from Miami’s six-game series against the Lakers in the Orlando bubble.
2 Miami’s Herro
Microwave scorer Tyler Herro has been wearing a bucket hat instead of a uniform for most of the Heat’s postseason run after fracturing his hand in the team’s firstround series vs. Milwaukee. The timeline originally provided by the Heat indicates that last year’s Sixth Man of the Year could return to the lineup at some point in this series. But just how effective can Herro be after missing all but one of the Heat’s 18 playoff games? If it’s anywhere close to what he produced over 67 games during the regular season (20.1 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.2 assists), that would be a significant boost.
3 Rest vs. rust
After sweeping the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, the Nuggets will have gone nine days between when they last played May 22 in L. A. and tip- off of Game 1 inside Ball Arena. Will that extended rest be an advantage against a Heat team that only closed out the Celtics three days earlier? Or will it produce a sluggish start with the Nuggets needing time to shake off the rust? There is a precedent for this earlier in the postseason: The Nuggets had a week of rest while first-round opponent Minnesota grinded through a pair of play-in games prior to the first round. The Game 1 result? A 10980 thrashing of the T-wolves that was over by the end of the third quarter.
4 Bombs away
In a nod to the times, the last two teams standing in these NBA Playoffs also happen to be the two best 3-point shooting squads in the postseason bracket. While the Heat comes in at No. 1 at 39.0% over 18 games, with an average of 13.1 3-pointers per game, the Nuggets are just a tick behind at No. 2 (38.6%, 12.1 3s/ game). Could this series come down to who defends the 3-point line better? Both teams have been quite good in that regard, with the Nuggets giving up just 9.9 triples/game at a 34.2% clip this postseason, and the Heat 12.3 at 32.5%.
5 Mile High advantage
As befitting its status as just the second No. 8 seed to reach the NBA Finals since 1999, the Heat has been road warriors throughout its run to the NBA Finals, going 6- 4 away from South Beach, including three wins at Boston in the Eastern Conference Finals. There’s just one small problem with that: Miami has lost six straight at Ball Arena, with those losses coming by an average margin of 12.6 points. Throw in the games at Kaseya Center, and Miami is just 2-10 against Denver since the start of the 2017-18 season — a period that just so happens to coincide with the rise of the Nuggets as perennial playoff contenders. Throw in Denver’s perfect record (6- 0) at Ball Arena during these playoffs, and the odds are clearly stacked against the Heat.