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May 28, 2023

Nuggets face playoffs adversity for 1st time after NBA Finals loss to Heat

As Michael Malone’s team powered through the postseason and into the NBA Finals,

As Michael Malone's team powered through the postseason and into the NBA Finals, he found himself steadily relying on a couple of go-to thoughts about his team's performance.

He's repeatedly noted — and as weeks progressed, cautioned — that his team faced very little true postseason adversity as it dispatched Minnesota in five games, Phoenix in six and Los Angeles in four.

Before Game 3 in Phoenix, he said, "we’ve had no adversity in the postseason yet. Things have gone really, really smooth. And adversity is coming. It's knocking on the door."

Phoenix tied that series with a pair of blistering offensive performances at home, but that led Malone right to his other go-to: The old basketball cliché that a series doesn't start until somebody wins a road game.

That lack of postseason adversity took the form of a 13-3 mark overall going into Sunday's Game 2 against Miami and a 9-0 run at Ball Arena.

No longer. The NBA Finals are on. Adversity knocks.

"I mean, we know that that's not going to happen," Denver center Nikola Jokic said of trying to extend the team's perfect run at home following a 111-108 loss to the Heat in Game 2. "Of course, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and especially in the playoffs, where every game is different, every game matters.

"… We didn't want to lose, but we lost. So hopefully we’re going to go there and win the next one."

The Nuggets will have to get either Game 3 or Game 4 to avoid returning to Denver on the brink of elimination. To do so, the they will have to overcome one of the series’ most lopsided mismatches: Back-against-the-wall experience.

The Nuggets held the best record in the Western Conference. They mostly breezed to the No. 1 seed. They’ve not trailed in a postseason series yet. They haven't had a name on an injury report for weeks.

Miami? Scrapped just to make the play-in. Lost Tyler Herro to a broken hand in its first playoff game. Let Boston run off three straight wins, stared down a historic collapse and won Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on the road.

Metrics, betting markets and the win/loss column all say the Nuggets are better than the Heat. But the Heat knows this kind of fight.

"We faced a lot of adversity during the season," coach Erik Spoelstra said. "We handled it the right way where you are not making excuses about it, the injuries, the changed lineups. Because of all that adversity and the 57 close games that happened, due to a lot of that, it hardened us. It steeled us, and we developed some grit, which is what we all want.

"We want to be able to have that privilege of having adversity and being able to overcome it. You gain strength from that."

The Nuggets have a gym session ahead of them. The Heat have been in the weight room.

"It's like a muscle that you work on and you get better," Spoelstra said. "We’ve had more experience at this than anybody else in the league. We’ve had a lot of crushing losses during the regular season."

Sunday night was that for Denver, but not because Jamal Murray's tying shot at the buzzer rimmed out. It was crushing because, for the first time since the playoffs began, the Nuggets looked fallible on their home court.

If they make like Minneapolis and, more pertinently, the Western Conference Finals in Los Angeles, and win on the road? Control of the series returns to the favorites. If not, buckle up.

"We’ve won on the road before," Nuggets 14-year veteran Jeff Green said Sunday night. "I think we understand what's at stake. They did what they were supposed to do. They came in here, got a split. Now they’re going home, and I think we have to go in there worried about Game 3. We can't worry about Game 4. We have to worry about Game 3.

"We know we have to be better defensively. Our energy has to be better and then get that win when we play Wednesday."

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