The Denver Nuggets drew first blood in the 2023 NBA Finals with a (pretty) dominant Game 1 victory - MIA made a run at the outset of the fourth quarter but timely, late buckets by superstar Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray led to a comfortable W.
Murray, as has been the case the entire postseason, was in an awesome rhythm with his J: fadeaways, step-back treys, and pull-ups were the norms as he systematically tuned up the Heat from the outside.
He got going early and eventually finished w/ 26 points & 10 dimes. Jokić, who did not score his first field goal until the end of the quarter was the perfect maestro: game-high 14! dimes to highlight yet another triple-double (27, 14 & 10 boards).
Aaron Gordon was an early recipient of a few Jokic assists in the 1st quarter. With a tremendous strength advantage on Caleb Martin, Gordon ducked in for some easy scores en route to a double-digit opening stanza.
Miami would be wise to mix & match the starting five so an (already) bigger Denver team won’t continue to exploit major mismatches.
The main positives for the Heat came in the form of Bam Adebayo (26!, 13 & 5 dimes), Gabe Vincent (19 pts) & Haywood Highsmith (18! off bench) - a late, fourth quarter flurry made it a single-digit game until Jokić closed the show with soft floaters in the lane.
If Miami can avoid another poor shooting performance & Jimmy Butler gets going (13 pts on 6/14 shooting in Game 1), they have a chance to rebound in Game 2.
That said, Denver‘s been unflappable (so far) at home in the 2023 postseason and features the requisite balance, consistency & talent to keep things going.