**ESPN:** [recap](https://www.espn.com/nba/recap/_/gameId/401544847) – [boxscore](https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401544847) – [gamecast](https://www.espn.com/nba/game/_/gameId/401544847) | **NBA.com:** [boxscore](https://www.nba.com/game/0042200402) – [shotchart](https://www.nba.com/game/0042200402/game-charts)
||**Q1**|**Q2**|**Q3**|**Q4**|**Final**||
|:—|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|
**MIA**|**26**|**25**|**24**|**36**|**111**|[](/MIA)|
**DEN**|**23**|**34**|**26**|**25**|**108**|[](/DEN)|
**Team**|**FG**|**3PT**|**FT**|**OR**|**Reb**|**Ast**|**TO**|**Stl**|**Blk**|**PF**|**Pts**|
|:—|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|
[](/MIA)**MIA**|**38-78 (48.7)**|**17-35 (48.6)**|**18-20 (90.0)**|**8**|**31**|**28**|**11**|**5**|**4**|**22**|**111**|
[](/DEN)**DEN**|**39-75 (52.0)**|**11-28 (39.3)**|**19-22 (86.4)**|**9**|**38**|**23**|**13**|**7**|**2**|**21**|**108**|
**[](/DEN)DEN**|**Min**|**FG**|**3PT**|**FT**|**OR**|**Reb**|**Ast**|**TO**|**Stl**|**Blk**|**PF**|**Pts**|**+/-**|
|:—|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|
M. Porter Jr.^^SF|26:23|2-8 (25.0)|1-6 (16.7)|0-0 (0.0)|1|6|0|1|0|0|2|5|-15|
A. Gordon^^PF|38:13|5-7 (71.4)|2-2 (100.0)|0-2 (0.0)|1|7|2|0|0|1|3|12|-7|
N. Jokic^^C|41:53|16-28 (57.1)|2-5 (40.0)|7-8 (87.5)|3|11|4|5|0|0|3|41|-11|
K. Caldwell-Pope^^SG|36:07|1-4 (25.0)|1-3 (33.3)|3-3 (100.0)|0|3|3|1|1|1|6|6|-14|
J. Murray^^PG|38:49|7-15 (46.7)|3-8 (37.5)|1-1 (100.0)|1|4|10|1|1|0|2|18|-2|
B. Brown|27:15|4-9 (44.4)|1-3 (33.3)|2-2 (100.0)|1|5|0|3|2|0|1|11|+14|
J. Green|15:54|1-1 (100.0)|1-1 (100.0)|6-6 (100.0)|1|1|1|1|0|0|2|9|+12|
C. Braun|15:24|3-3 (100.0)|0-0 (0.0)|0-0 (0.0)|1|1|3|1|3|0|2|6|+8|
**Totals**||**39-75 (52.0)**|**11-28 (39.3)**|**19-22 (86.4)**|**9**|**38**|**23**|**13**|**7**|**2**|**21**|**108**||
**DNP:** ***Thomas Bryant***, ***Vlatko Cancar***, ***Reggie Jackson***, ***DeAndre Jordan***, ***Zeke Nnaji***, ***Ish Smith***, ***Peyton Watson***
**Inactive:**
**[](/MIA)MIA**|**Min**|**FG**|**3PT**|**FT**|**OR**|**Reb**|**Ast**|**TO**|**Stl**|**Blk**|**PF**|**Pts**|**+/-**|
|:—|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|
J. Butler^^SF|40:21|7-19 (36.8)|2-5 (40.0)|5-5 (100.0)|2|4|9|1|0|0|0|21|+3|
K. Love^^PF|22:13|2-9 (22.2)|2-6 (33.3)|0-0 (0.0)|3|10|1|0|2|0|0|6|+18|
B. Adebayo^^C|40:00|8-14 (57.1)|0-0 (0.0)|5-5 (100.0)|0|9|4|3|0|2|4|21|+17|
M. Strus^^SG|29:13|4-10 (40.0)|4-10 (40.0)|2-3 (66.7)|0|2|6|0|0|1|3|14|+14|
G. Vincent^^PG|31:39|8-12 (66.7)|4-6 (66.7)|3-3 (100.0)|0|0|3|1|2|0|4|23|+22|
K. Lowry|23:38|2-4 (50.0)|2-3 (66.7)|3-3 (100.0)|0|0|3|3|0|0|3|9|-15|
C. Martin|21:26|1-3 (33.3)|1-2 (50.0)|0-0 (0.0)|2|5|1|2|1|1|1|3|-7|
C. Zeller|7:59|2-2 (100.0)|0-0 (0.0)|0-0 (0.0)|0|0|0|1|0|0|3|4|-14|
D. Robinson|17:22|4-5 (80.0)|2-3 (66.7)|0-1 (0.0)|0|0|1|0|0|0|2|10|-6|
H. Highsmith|6:07|0-0 (0.0)|0-0 (0.0)|0-0 (0.0)|1|1|0|0|0|0|2|0|-17|
**Totals**||**38-78 (48.7)**|**17-35 (48.6)**|**18-20 (90.0)**|**8**|**31**|**28**|**11**|**5**|**4**|**22**|**111**||
**DNP:** ***Udonis Haslem***, ***Nikola Jovic***, ***Omer Yurtseven***
**Inactive:** ***Tyler Herro***, ***Victor Oladipo***
||**PITP**|**2^^nd PTS**|**FB PTS**|**BIG LD**|**BEN PTS**|**TOT TOV**|**TOV PTS**||
|:—|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|:–:|
**MIA**|34|11|5|12|26|11|19|[](/MIA)|
**DEN**|48|15|18|15|26|14|23|[](/DEN)|
**Lead Changes: 4** | **Times Tied: 3** | **Gametime: 2:25** | **Attendance: 19537**
*Officials: Courtney Kirkland, Zach Zarba, John Goble*
by BigHoneyBot
48 Comments
Can’t win in 5 without giving up 1
Can we fast forward to Wednesday?
Outside of Joker the starters just weren’t there tonight. Murray and Porter have to do better.
# CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES 😭
Their secret weapon was Kevin love all along…
Spoelstra plays with 10 players, because of the freshness, the intensity in the defense, they literally ran constantly and had pressure in the defense. Malone thinks he can get a ring with 7 players + washed Jeff. Putting Jeff back in the rotation instead of Zeke and Vlatko is a catastrophic mistake. Malone doesn’t realize that Spoelstra is going to outrun him with 10 players because he’s smarter and has realized how clichéd Malone is. Malone never reacts at all when things go wrong. The man sees that Porter can’t do anything and keeps him in the game. The man sees how Jeff can’t defend anything and keeps him in the game. His inability to react quickly and change line ups is terrible.
We cant defend theirs so many shooters, guards with Jeff who can barely run.
​
Put Zeke in to defend perimeter.
I think it’s time we get rid of MPJ. Max contract player who plays 26 mins in a finals game and can’t do anything but shoot 3s and is useless when he’s not hitting anything.
Pain. But we didn’t play well at all. We can definitely do better. Reminds of that Minnesota game we lost in the first round.
Really tough game to watch but for a game where nobody but joker played great and the refs were making really questionable calls , to only lose it by 3 makes me feel a bit more optimistic. Obviously a loss is a loss no matter by how much but I’d rather play really poorly and lose by 3 than play stellar and still lose by 3. I feel like if they tighten things up a bit and everyone not wearing # 15 contributes a bit more then taking one if not both in Miami is very doable, stay positive and LETS GO NUGGETS!
And the chess match begins.
Rough effort from everyone (sept jok) until the very end. Tough 3 point loss at home but I’m still confident in the squad
Oh gosh now we’re the ones who got the moral victory
Real quick, you all see how we were up 10 with just Jokic playing well? You all see they won the game by 3 with some really bad calls that even made the commentators say its bad calls? You all see how this team responds to games like this? We are winning this shit. Its not gonna be easy, the Heat are tough, they fight, and play great, scramble defense. Everyone played bad outside of Jokic, the Heat shot 50% and we lost by **three** points.
We are fine. Realize this is the finals, we are gonna have to earn this and we know we can win this. It took the refs, 50% from 3, and everyone going missing except Jokic to beat us by 3 fucking points. Its okay. So relax, we got a series and its one we can win easily if the others lock in.
Goodnight
Moral victories suck. Don’t know why Lakers love them so much.
This is my fault. I wore my Jokic jersey that I wore to Game 7 in 2019. Swore I’d never wear it during a game again. Today just confirms the hex.
Nuggets may never win again. Ever. Period.
Game 3 is now a must win. You don’t want to tempt fate and the odds by losing game 3.
The game 3 winner in a 1-1 series wins the Finals 78% of the time.
one loss after 7 straight wins in the playoffs and its back to fire malone and trade mpj 🙁 y’all actually suck as fans
I can’t think of a more embarrassing loss in Nuggets history tbh. We gave a winnable game away in every single way to a far inferior team. Feeling pretty good about bouncing back with a beat down in game 3.
Obvious OOB by jimmy to set up the vincent 3 and obvious goaltending by bam, proper calls on just those plays turn this game in our favor even though we played like ass. We’ve beaten the team+refs vs the lakers but our shots were not going down enough to beat the heat+refs unfortunately.
Gotta have one loss to have Nuggs in 5. Not worried yet.
We should probably start closing out on 3s when Herro comes back.
The doomers are really going to have a field day with this one 😬
What was the game strategy for this one? Just make sure they don’t drive to the basket? And also just make jokic score and limit the assist for him?
Strategy for both teams really
There’s one way where Nuggets can 100% win the chip.
I’ll cashout my Nuggets future and secure the chip for you
😂🤝
So much for a sweep
Wondering if MPJ is gonna shoot lights out or stink it up drives me nuts. I just want a string of consistent games from him.
No matter how the next 2 games go the game 5 atmosphere is going to be unbelievable
Down 1-1 and people are already dooming. Did you people forget when we came back down from 3-1….TWICE
The heat are screwed once we make the “start DeAndre Jordan at Center” adjustment.
Miami fans acting like they’ve shot 50% from 3 all playoffs. They’re averaging 39% from 3 in the playoffs. That said, Nuggets perimeter D needs to be better.
Time to cool down now….refs aside, let’s just not talk about it.
-Biggest mistakes made tonight were doubling so many times when they didn’t need to. It led to open 3 after open 3.
-coming out flat, can’t wait to see how they come out game 3.
-KCP and mpj. Expecting them to come out much better.
We don’t use our bench so we can’t have two of our starters score just 11. Huge game 3 coming. Hope they learned from this
Damn my whole vacation ruined
I definitely got caught up in the doomer mentality. Sorry y’all. Just didn’t want us to lose at home. Hope the boys keep a level head and not let it get to them like a lot of our fans.
Didn’t use a challenge at all?? Had 2 timeouts and didn’t use those either for the final play
I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed.
How about we give the clear uncontested rebounds to jokic asap so he can start the break? There were multiple instances of players (looking at you, porter) getting rebounds then dribbling all the way to the 3pt line only to not know what to do after picking the dribble
Damn, Malone might as well have just called out MPJ by name in his post match press conference. *’Players feeling sorry for themselves because their shots didn’t go in*’ – 100% referring to MPJ
Maybe if Malone would stop thinking about the lakers so much he would have time to actually, you know, coach the team to victory.
Jokic was inducted into the Big Man Alliance but he forgot the most important lesson Barkley learned when he fought a certain tenacious underdog team: you gotta kill them like they’re snakes.
everyone was sucking denver off after game one that i literally saw this coming, even the denver players were being arrogant
At least we got terrorist Zach Zarbitch out of the way, hope we don’t get to see his hobbit face till next season.
That loss was more annoying than anything tbh. I not mad, or disappointed. Just annoyed. We still got this but we did such a good job of not giving games away these playoffs up until tonight.
after 7 straight wins in the playoffs, the taste of defeat is just rough.
The honest truth is that Miami went 17/35 from 3 – 48.5%. It’s difficult to beat anyone when they shoot that well. They made some really tough 3’s too.
The officials also made so many awful calls against us that it was obvious Silver needed this series extended.
Warriors lost game 1 of the finals at home last year
Miami was beat twice at home by Boston. We can & will win 1 there.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. The only reason I’m commenting is that reading through this thread I see a lot of Denver fans panicking a bit. I just want to say that, from the outside looking in, it is obvious that there is zero percent chance of you guys losing this series. I’m pretty sure that is the overwhelming sentiment of others too.