Heat want to get to line more, while Nuggets vow to be better in Game 2

DENVER (AP) —For the Miami Heat, shooting at Denver’s 5,280 feet of mile-highaltitude during Game 1 of the NBA Finals wasn’t a problem.

Not shootingfrom 15 feet — the distance from the basket to the foul line —was.

The Heat madeNBA history, and not the good kind, by shooting only two freethrows in Game 1 as Denver struck first in the title series with a104-93 win. It was the fewest free throw attempts ever by a team ina playoff game and makes one of the adjustments for Game 2 onSunday simple to forecast: Expect Miami to go into attack mode.

“The attacks,we didn’t have enough of them,” said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra,whose team sent Denver to the line for 20 free throws in Game 1. “Ithought the free throw disparity was appropriate. Maybe we couldhave got two, four, six more based on a call here or a call there.But overall our attack numbers were lower, and that usuallytranslates into lower free throw attempts.”

Adjustmentsat playoff time are considered some mystical thing, as if a team isgoing to completely reinvent itself during the day or two betweengames. They’re usually nothing more than minor tweaks, maybe alineup change, a slight shift in how a pick-and-roll isdefended.

The Nuggetsare used to this by now. They are 4-0 in Game 1s in these playoffs— having led them by 32, 25, 21 and 24 points, respectively. Andthe teams that lost those games, obviously, had the infamousadjustments to make going into Game 2.

They worked.Sort of. Denver’s biggest leads in the three Game 2s it has playedso far are 21, 12 and 12 points. That’s less than the Game 1margins, but not enough to affect the outcome. The Nuggets are 3-0in those games, too.

And if youthink that has Nuggets coach Michael Malone at ease, well, thinkagain.

“I told ourplayers today, don’t read the paper, don’t listen to the folks onthe radio and TV saying that this series is over and that we’vedone something, because we haven’t done a damn thing,” Malone said.“We won Game 1. The reason I told our players I was excited thismorning is because we won Game 1 and we didn’t play well, andthere’s so many things we can do better. If we do those things at abetter level, we’ll have a chance to win Game 2.”

There’salways things to do better. Even for Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray,believe it or not.

They joinedMagic Johnson and James Worthy, in 1987, as the only teammates tohave at least 25 points and 10 assists in the same finals game —and the Nuggets’ duo did it in their finals debut. Jokic had a27-point triple-double, Murray finished with 26, and the stage wasclearly not too big for Denver’s two best players.

Denver isalso trying to be the first team to start a postseason 10-0 at homesince Boston in 2018.

“You just tryto win every game. It’s first to four, no matter how you get itdone,” Murray said. “Obviously, you want to take advantage of beingat home. Love playing at home. But any game you can win, you take.So, yeah, we’re looking forward to just winning every single gamethat we play.”

This isMiami’s first 1-0 deficit of the postseason. The Heat won Game 1son the road in Milwaukee, New York and Boston on their way to thefinals; no team had ever won four Game 1s away from home in thesame postseason.

And while theNuggets are saying — correctly, too — that they missed plenty ofopen shots, the Heat can absolutely point to that as a way they’llimprove in Game 2. Max Strus (0 for 10), Caleb Martin (1 for 7) andDuncan Robinson (1 for 6) were a combined 2 for 23 from the floorin Game 1, 2 for 16 from 3-point range.

That would bethe simplest and most effective adjustment Miami could make forSunday — make shots.

“I’m going tocontinue play the right way. I’m going to pass the ball to myshooters the way I have been playing the entire playoffs, theentire year,” said Heat forward Jimmy Butler, who scored 13 in Game1, his lowest-scoring game so far in these playoffs.

“But I thinkI’ve got to be more aggressive putting pressure on the rim,” hesaid. “I think that makes everybody’s job a lot easier. Theydefinitely follow suit whenever I’m aggressive on both sides of theball. So, I have to be the one to come out and kick that off theright way — which I will — and we’ll see where we end up.”