Hoops Tonight - NBA Finals Game 1 Reaction: Nikola Jokic & Nuggets destroy Jimmy Butler & Heat

I thought that that was an especially concerning game for Miami Heat fans because I thought the Heat did a lot of things really well in that game. They won a lot of battles against Denver that Denver has been winning against everybody else in this postseason run, and they still lost by double figure. So we're gonna get into it.

I'm not gonna go too deep into the x's and o's tonight because we're be doing our film sessions on the day after the Finals, so keep an eye on the feeds tomorrow in the afternoon time for that full length film breakdown. But we are gonna dive into a bunch of stuff that I noticed in the live show. You guys know the drip before we get started. To subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss

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a lot of history in it. You know, this is kind of an interesting series because there's not a ton of history in this particular series, Like Jimmy's been there before. A couple of these guys have been there before, but a lot of these guys, especially the stars, are guys that have never won championships before, and kind of reminds me a little bit of the twenty twenty one NBA Finals,

where it feels more like the beginning of history. You know, we look back, You look back at a guy like Steph Curry or Lebron James, and they have four championships each, right, But what happens is you go back and it's like there was a time in twenty fifteen when Steph looked like a baby on ABC competing in the NBA Finals, and at the time, like, if I would have told you everything that was coming after and you would have looked at that for what it was, which was a

little piece of history, you would have had a little bit more appreciation for it. Same thing goes for Lebron James, like in the twenty twelve finals, you know they win a lot of those games were competitive, but they win in five games and at the time you're like, oh, you know, Lebron won a title. But it's like it's kind of the beginning of history there. And that's kind of what this felt like to me, because not only for either of these guys, regardless of who wins, it's

a significant marker. If Jimmy Butler wins, it's this huge career defining achievement. But Jokic winning and I believe he's going to We're gonna talk about all the reasons why. It just feels like the one step in what could be a magnificent career. I mean, the dude's twenty six years old. I mean he could win. He's gonna be back on this stage. Every single one of these Denver Nuggets players that's in their core rotation is under contract

for next year and likely will return. The only guy that they could end up losing is a guy like Bruce Brown. But like, they're gonna be right back on this stage in the future. And that's what kind of is cool about this. It feels a lot like history in the making. I was a little concerned about this series going in. You know, it's funny. There's a lot of narrative surrounding this series of it being boring from the standpoint of the drama or the or the interestingness

of the players. I disagree with that. To me, drama takes away from the game of basketball anyway, and I actually find these teams to be very interesting from a

basketball perspective. The Heat being this team that squeezes everything out of their talent by virtue of brilliant coaching and excellent play from their stars, and just a lot of guys that have chips on their shoulder, and then Denver truly achieving unguardability, like we talked about during the Western Conference Finals, which we're going to spend a lot of

time talking about. It's very interesting on that level. However, there's a reason why I was rooting for Boston in the last round, and it's because I have so much respect for how good this Denver Nuggets team is. Even though I didn't like Boston, I knew it was going to require a great deal of talent and athleticism in size to even attempt to challenge Denver. And that's what's concerning because as I look at this particular game tonight, Miami won a lot of battles that Denver's been winning

in earlier rounds. All of the things that can be squeezed out of talent, Miami won. For instance, they held up on the glass. Remember the Nuggets obliterated the Lakers on the glass when they came in Lasadaisical in Game one. They were a twenty to three at rebounding advantage at one of the first TV timeouts, which is insane. Miami had forty three rebounds in this game. Denver had forty four. They held up really well. As a matter of fact,

Miami got eleven offensive rebounds in this game. The Heat only had eight turnovers. They had fewer turnovers than Denver and in general had a very low amount of turnovers. Their transition defense was incredible. They kept Denver out of transition for the most part in this game, all those Bruce Brown semi transition attacks. You know, Duncan Robinson's putting his body on the line, sliding his feet and getting

in front of guys. They were sprinting back in general and building a wall and making guys play in a crowd. They did a ton of things extremely well, and it just didn't matter. They lost by double figures. Miami even made one of their patented fourth quarter runs right where they just keep competing while you kind of let your foot off the gas a little bit. I think they got it to nine at one point during that stretch when Nikola Jokicic was off the floor, They're running a

lot of zone. They were getting out in transition, and then Jokis checks back into the game and immediately scores twice in a row. There was that against their zone. They stayed in the zone, and we're gonna talk a little bit about zone because I actually think that might be Miami's best chance to get stops in this series, as crazy as that sounds, which we'll get to in a little bit. But first possession, they come back in

and they ran a really interesting double screen. So like there's two guys in the two top guys in the zone in the two three, and Contavious Cobble Pope and Yokic come up and set screens on the two guys, and Jokic is the last guy. Gabe Vincent is that top left guy in the zone. He has to show as Jamal Murray is coming out right because if he doesn't, Jamal is just gonna turn the corner and get into

the lane or get a wide open jump shot. Right right as Vincent shows, Jokic slips, and right when he slips, that's when Jamal Murray throws the pass. He catches and makes an easy floater in a lane, a shot he's gonna make every single time, because again, that's what causes so many problems for teams with Denver. They are completely fundamentally unguardable. Then he came back on the very next

possession they switch back to man. He gets bam at a bio in the middle of the lane and makes a short, little fadeaway jump shot in the lane, another shot he's been making well over fifty percent of the time this entire season, And just like that, Bam, it's back up to thirteen points and the game feels like it's over. Miami did a lot of things right and still lost. Now you're gonna say things like Miami didn't shoot the ball particularly well. These things are connected. They

always are. Like the Lakers physically mauled the Warriors, and so then the Warriors couldn't make shots because guess what, when you're battling bigger players all over the floor, when you're boxing out, sprinting, in transition, fronting the post. Miami did a ton of fronting the post tonight. When you do those sorts of things, it wears your legs out.

And then when you trigger your muscle memory and then wide open shot situation, the energy's off because you don't quite have the same amount of lift as you normally do, so you start compensating at the top part of your shot. Your muscle memory is off. Now you're missing shots. The Lakers bullied the Warriors, the Warriors missed a ton of shots. Then the Lakers went into a bigger matchup against Denver. Denver bullied the Lakers. A bunch of guys shot poorly.

Lebron had been working on his jump shot like crazy, shot thirty nine percent from three over the finals five games of the Warriors series and literally couldn't make a jumper in the Denver series. And D'Angelo Russell completely crumbled and couldn't make a jumper. That's what happens. Everyone wants to attribute shot result to luck, and don't get me wrong, there's a little bit of luck at play there. But what is it that causes a good shooting night versus

a bad shooting night. It's all of those other factors that lead into it. And so Denver bullied the Lakers into missing a bunch of shots. And look at this. This is a Miami team that has been lights out from three in two of the three series. In this postseason run, they finally run into a team that truly makes them work to another level. Then they've had to work in either any of their previous rounds, and suddenly guys like Max Struz are hitting the front rim on

A lot of these shots. All of a sudden, Gay Vincent's hitting the front rim. Kyle Lowry was really the only guy on the team that was confidently rising into shots and knocking them down. That stuff is all connected, Denver. One of their best forms of defense is the way they wear on you on the offensive end of the floor. Angie's list is now Angie your Home for everything Home. Angie doesn't just get your home projects done, Angie gets

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let's just fast forward and pretend Miami wins. Tell me how how would it be Like what would be the story if Miami had won? And I immediately went to the offensive end of the floor because I cannot see a scenario or Miami can consistently get stops against this team. You know, it's funny because everyone's obsessed in sports media with predictions like tell us what's gonna happen, and I've always thought that's stupid. You know, I do it because

it's part of the job. I always tell you, guys, even when I get predictions right, I'm just lucky, right, because this is sports. Sports is chaos. Sports is completely unpredictable. How many of you guys in your Eastern Conference Finals predictions had the Heat going up three to zero, then the Celtics getting back to back blowouts, and then the Celtics going up big on the road in Game six, toasting away a double digit lead in the final minutes, only to steal it at the buzzer, then go home

and get their ass kicked. How many of you guys had that? None of you. Because it's sports and it's chaos. I've always been more interested in the post mortem, in the briefing, in the diagnosis of what happened after the fact. That to me is what's interesting. Where are these basketball

games won and lost? And what's funny is when you look at the defense dynamic that every coach that every coach is trying to figure out from a game plan perspective, there's a trade off, right, if you leave a guy on an island and you stay home on shooters, Like you're gonna force that guy to take a lot of isolation shots, but are gonna disrupt their rhythm and keep them home off ball, and chances are like you're gonna be able to get a certain amount of stops or

fatigue that star to the point where he starts to miss. Later in the game, you're gonna have some success. Or the opposite, Right, you're double teaming the star, and now you're getting these off ball shots, but like you're forcing them to the right shooters, and so they're converting them at a lower rate, and so you're starting to have some success because the right guys are shooting in their missing shots. Right. That is that concept right there. Denver

broke that they've destroyed that concept. If you leave Yokic on an island, he is going to score almost every single time if you double team him. It's not an average shooter on the back line. It is a dead eye, knockdown shooter. And so they are fundamentally unguardable. Man de man situations. We saw this in all the film this from this regular season. We talked about it in man de man situations this year when Miami ran drop coverage against Nicol yokicch and Jamal Murray. They did it four times.

Jamal Murray scored on all four possessions. So are you stunned that tonight when they ran their drop coverage, Jamal Murray got going and scored a bunch. I mean, they can't be guarded that way, Okay, So let's try switching. Well, we started switching these actions and Jokic is scoring in the post. Oh, we're switching off ball actions with Aaron Gordon. Let's just pound the ball inside to Aaron Gordon. He scores what twelve points by the second TV timeout? Like

that's crazy. During the regular season, Denver posted up Miami thirty times and scored forty seven points. So we saw a ton of examples of that switching and it just didn't work. Okay, you go zone and Miami actually had a little bit of success with zones. And I haven't seen the numbers yet because it hadn't been updated by the time I went live, but we will go over

those numbers in the film session tomorrow. They had some success, but when it really came down to it at the end of the game and they needed buckets, they got buckets in the zone. Every single time, getting the ball to Jokic in the middle of the floor, him either scoring or hitting cutters along the baseline or hitting shooters on the wing. It's just too difficult. There is no

defensive answer for this Denver team. Again, Guys, last round, it was Lebron James and Ruey Hatchamura, two guys that were six ' nine and just chiseled with muscle, banging in with Nikola Jokic, with Anthony Freakin Davis on the back line, and they were helpless. They had nothing, there was nothing they could do. They lit them up for one hundred and twenty two points per one hundred possessions.

They destroyed that Lakers defense. This Miami defense is more fundamentally sound, especially in transition, and they're a little bit better in the half court as well. Their rotations are a little sharper. They compete more on a possession by possession basis. But you're downsizing. Bam Adebayo is giving up what thirty forty pounds in several inches to Nikola Jokic. Jimmy Butler is giving up three four inches to Aaron

Gordon and twenty thirty pounds. You know, Max Struz has given up a bunch of weight to Michael Port like they're They're just completely overmatched physically down the line, and there's no amount of coaching or schematic approach or just give a shit chip on your shoulder competitiveness that can

make up for that. That's the problem again. Against the three teams that came before Miami or Miami played Boston, New York and Milwaukee, ye had crippling weaknesses in their half court offense that Miami was able to exploit, and Boston's defense wasn't as sharp and so they were to be able to capitalize with relocating shooters. This Denver team is excellent at all of the things Miami has been

capitalizing on during this postseason. That makes it extremely difficult to counter all of the things that we saw in the regular season. Came to fruition, They dominated the heat in the poets, They killed them in pick and roll with Murray's scoring. Michael Porter Junior was excellent. I actually thought Denver in general defended a hell of a lot better than they've been given credit for throughout this entire playoff run. Bruce Brown came in off the bench and

was hitting shots. You know, it's crazy. I was looking it up today. Bruce Brown shot below forty percent on floaters during the regular season, sixty four percent on floaters during the playoffs. He was nine for fourteen. Made two more of them tonight, just getting downhill and pick and roll, pinning the defender on that other side, just kind of bumping him off a little bit and making that little floater in the lane. Ever, this team is so damn good.

I think they're great even juxtaposed against recent champions, and like, look, the Miami could shoot better. They have some adjustments they can make. I put down a few of them. They can go bigger, like they can go with h They can go with Kevin Love. And Kevin Love obviously is not as quick as he used to be, but he's an expert at body position and leverage, so you can ask him to front the post a little bit, or bang with Yokic on different spots and put bam At

a bio into a help situation. They can play a lot more zone. Again, I don't have the numbers yet, but they did have some success with zone. It seemed to actually disrupt Denver's flow a little bit. Uh, But like the reality is is the Nuggets are kind of adjustment proof on that end of the floor and like praying that everything is connected like Phoenix. Game one mails it in right. Then in game two they bring all this defensive effort, they turn it into a slugfest. But

then they can't hit any shots. Why cause their bodies are beat the shit from battling with everybody all game long. Like again, when you're fronting the post or you're banging with a dude in a box out, that's literally like you're on a like press machine. Like watch footage of Bam at a bio fronting the post. He's down in a squad, he's got his back, Yoki is pushing on

his back and he's like pressing him up. You're in the gym, like pressing two hundred and fifty pounds and then going down and trying to take a floating jump shot in the lane. Like it's I don't see a scenario where they just suddenly are knocking down all these shots. Maybe when they get back to Miami and they have a little bit of adrenaline rush. But I said this before the series, and I mean it. I struggle to find basketball reasons for how Miami can win games in

this series. And I hope I'm wrong because I would love to have a more competitive NBA Finals, But I think we could be in some trouble here. I think Denver has an opportunity to get this thing over with relatively quickly. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. Like I said, I'm not gonna do to too much of a deep dive into the x's and o's. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning. I'm gonna watch all

the film over and over again. Get some numbers. Follow me on Twitter because I usually tweet out video links as well as some of the stats that I find for my analytical platforms, and then I'll be recording that film session. It'll be on the feeds sometime tomorrow afternoon. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see you then. The volume