(1) denver nuggets (8) miami heat 2023 nba finals ft the joker and mommy butler

seems like the heat really miss butler — any word on if he’ll be back for game 2

i thought jimmy looked tired last night. he had good explosion in his legs but by the second quarter he was walking up the court and having other guys bring the ball up. the heat taking two FTs as a team is probably an indication that they were all kinda beat down

if there was anything interesting that happened for the heat in that game it was that the one thing everyone seemed to agree on before the series -- you can't play zone w/ jokic on the floor -- actually didn't play out that way. i think JVG called it out on TV but it had the effect of neutering the murray-jokic two man game. i don't think it's a panacea by any stretch, but perhaps a button the heat can continue to push when they need the nuggets to cool off for a 3-4 min stretch, or perhaps at the end of a close game. i thought before the series that making murray uncomfortable should be the heat's no 1 defensive priority & he looked way less comfortable when they threw zone at them. i think the issue is that you can momentarily trick jokic into being overly passive by switching up your looks but i think moving forward if he sees a few possessions of zone in a row he's just gonna say fuck it & start scoring a bunch. they left him really easy open floater type looks that he missed i think bcuz he was a bit discombobulated but i wouldn't bank on that, obviously. heat just kinda need to play better & also see what they can do to rattle murray a bit & shift some pressure to denver's other players. onwards and upwards

Yeah, I don't think he's gonna stay discombobulated.

at least two days off between all these games is so lame

good for the Heat to get some rest but yeah no ball tonight it sucks

yeah just got in tried to turn on the game had no idea it was tomorrow

How does this sched MAKE money for league/teams, I don’t get it but I tend to believe they must think it’s a +

its weird because during the conf finals they're pretty adament on having games on every night

i think they have probably determined that they get more eyeballs on thursday and sunday than they would on a friday or a saturday

but game 4 is on Friday

i'm sure it's all about what times the broadasters are most advantaged

Not sure how much it matters but the nhl finals first game was tonight

nhl puts final in ice from arena on surface of sun during solar flare. surface: inconsistent

Miami in both finals as well

oh yeah if they share an arena that becomes a factor

they do not share one tho

i think from the league’s perspective you also want your most visible games of each year to be played at as high a level as possible, so i think the two day breaks are purposeful from a rest perspective

& as cad says thurs/sun are also marquee TV nights, those being games 1 and 2 are not accidental. when each conference finals was 3-0 the league was like “yeah we don’t move the dates” & i heard hollinger say it was partly bcuz of international media, you can’t just shift travel on all those ppl suddenly. but i think the league also just wouldn’t part w/ the thurs/sun opening schedule

are they trying to pull one on me by putting the game at 8 after a month of games at 8:30

jokic coming out more aggressive tonight but its not paying off yet

generally speaking if jokic is shooting a lot of 3s, the offense isn’t in rhythm

pretty much a nut low quarter from the nuggets and they’re down 3

Assertive Jeff green appearance

Bam post ups tend to not be very fruitful huh

Damn they should sit Joker the whole game

heat should think about trying to win the non-jokic minutes

no it’s good

as I’ve been saying all year the jeff green minutes are where it’s at

Jokic water polo passes are the best

hello is anyone on ILH watching the NBA finals

i'll be caught up for the second half

the thing about sweden in june is the sun doesn’t really set so if you like to sleep the jokes on you

it’s moments like this when using a roster spot on udonis haslem seems most valuable

insane 3rd from Joker

do you think jimmy knows the finals have started?

glad to see him fulfill his childhood dream of watching a Finals game

I feel like if I were the best player in the playiffs, I’d have more than 10 field goals through 7 quarters. personally!

do you think jimmy just really loves playing in the eastern conference playoffs?

might have to make a "do not make fun of jimmy butler for doing so tempts fate" sign that i can tap

well as they say the Heat are very much "back on their bullshit" right now

might be time for denver to get the starters back in

heat can win any game if and only if they shoot 50% from 3, is the theme of this playoffs

lol Bam sold that pretty hard

Denver kind of self destructing.

amazing Miami is flopping their way into a road Finals victory

too many fouls

steam coming out of jokic's ears rn

nuggets trying out the “ do everything wrong” strategy

can't they look back and switch that block to a goaltend, the way they switch 2s to 3s and vice versa? or does it need to be reviewed in the moment since it was a live ball as it was played

no