The Denver Nuggets on Thursday launched the first NBA Finals campaign in franchise history with a dominant 104-93 victory over the Miami Heat, propelled by yet another Nikola Jokic triple-double.
Two-time Most Valuable Player Jokic scored 27 points with 10 rebounds and 14 assists to lead the Nuggets, who will try to double their advantage in the best-of-seven series when they host Game 2 tomorrow.
Jamal Murray scored 26 points, handed out 10 assists and grabbed six rebounds for Denver, who led by 24 points in the third quarter and repelled the resilient Heat’s fourth-quarter challenge.
Photo: Kyle Terada-USA Today
Jokic and Murray became the second pair of teammates to have 25 points and 10 assists each in an NBA Finals game, joining Magic Johnson and James Worthy for the Lakers in 1987.
“We just wanted to get the first punch,” Jokic said. “In the first three rounds they won their first game when they traveled on the road and we didn’t want to have that to happen. I think we did a good job.”
Bam Adebayo scored 26 points to lead Miami. Gabe Vincent added 19 and Haywood Highsmith scored 18 off the bench, but Heat star Jimmy Butler was limited to 13 and Miami made it to the free-throw line just twice all night — a record low for an NBA playoff game.
Trailing by 21 entering the fourth quarter, Miami used an 11-0 run to cut the deficit to 10. Highsmith’s three-pointer got the gap to nine points with 2 minutes, 34 seconds to play, but as they had all night, the Nuggets seamlessly pulled away.
Jokic fed Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for a jump shot, Caldwell-Pope came up with a steal and Aaron Gordon made two free throws as the Nuggets rebuilt the lead.
Jokic added a pair of free throws and a turnaround jump shot, and the ecstatic crowd of 19,528 at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado, could start the celebrations.
“Everybody contributed,” Jokic said. “It’s a great win for us.”
Jokic was content to play facilitator in the first quarter, handing out six assists as the Nuggets clicked quickly despite the 10-day gap since they finished off their sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
Gordon scored 12 of his 16 points in the first quarter. Jokic did not take a shot until the waning seconds of the period, when he stripped the ball from Cody Zeller and made a layup that put Denver up 29-20.
Meanwhile the Heat, who flew straight to Denver from Boston after finally polishing off the Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Monday, connected on just nine of their 26 attempts in the first quarter.
“They are in a pretty good rhythm, especially in that first half,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Our disposition, the multiple efforts, the resolve in the second half was much better, but you get to this level, it has to be complete games of that kind of disposition.”
Denver kept up the relentless pace in the second quarter, Murray scoring 10 points in the period as the Nuggets connected on 60 percent of their shots.
Four Denver players scored in double figures in the first half. Adebayo had 16 before the break for Miami, but Caleb Martin went none-of-five and Max Strus none-of-seven.
Jokic’s 10 points and 10 assists before the break made him the only player besides LeBron James in the past 25 years to reach double digits in both categories in any half of an NBA Finals game.
“We’re trying to win a game any way possible,” Jokic said. “I don’t need to shoot, I don’t need to score to affect the game. I think I did a good job today.”
The Heat quickly sliced the deficit to 10 points at the start of the third quarter, but Denver had the answer to every adjustment they made.
“They did their job on their home floor, you have to say that, but we will be ready,” Butler said. “We will adjust, and we will do some things very differently, and come out here and be ready to give more for Game 2.”
LEGAL ACTION: The Suns said they were among the first teams approved for this season, but they had been asked to meet a stricter financial criterion afterward The Taichung Suns will not play in the T1 League’s 2023-2024 season after repeatedly failing to meet criteria regarding team finances, the professional basketball league said in a statement on Friday. The T1 League said that following the decision on the Suns, made at the league’s 22nd executive council meeting, it would postpone a planned news conference on Wednesday to discuss the upcoming season. A source familiar with the league’s operations told reporters that the Suns had been asked at two previous meetings of the T1 League’s executive council to provide evidence proving the franchise had the requisite finances. The announcement of the
‘NOTHING HAS CHANGED’: Jenni Hermoso said that the striking players had been ‘caught by surprise’ by the call-ups, saying it was a strategy to intimidate them Striking Spanish internationals called up to the women’s team on Monday reiterated their desire not to form part of the squad in a new blow for the shaken the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). However, they were told by the government early yesterday that those who did not attend the team’s camps when called up would have to be punished. Spanish National Sports Council president Victor Francos said he would have to apply the country’s sports law. “If they don’t turn up, the government would have to apply the law, which is a pity for me, but the law is the
EARLY LOSSES: Some sports have already started at the Asian Games in Hangzhou ahead of the opening ceremony on Saturday, including volleyball, with a Taiwan loss South Korea’s bid for a third straight men’s gold medal in soccer at the Asian Games got off to the perfect start with a 9-0 thrashing of Kuwait on Tuesday, but coach Hwang Sun-hong is giving his players little time to enjoy it. With a more testing group match against Thailand today, Hwang is wary of complacency creeping in after his side ran riot against Kuwait in Jinhua, China, southwest of host city Hangzhou. “We’ll pretend this match never happened,” Hwang said after the Kuwait game, Yonhap news agency reported. “We have even more difficult matches coming up later, and we have
Hong Kong is one of the smaller Asian Games teams by population, but when it comes to fencing the territory is a regional heavyweight with ambitious medal hopes. Edgar Cheung won gold at the Tokyo Games two years ago — Hong Kong’s first Olympic fencing title and first Olympic gold in any sport in 25 years. It turned Cheung into a celebrity overnight and prompted parents across the territory to rush and sign their children up for fencing classes. Cheung’s historic win in the foil competition was a much-needed dose of good news for a territory mired in social unrest and COVID-19 gloom
RSS