C.omo Alice in Wonderland, Leonardo Dicaprio in ‘Origin‘ either Batman in one of the nightmares scarecrow oscillating between bruce wayne and the Dark Knight. The playoffs of Miami Heat have been a continuum sanity test, a repeated exercise of discernment between what is real and what is not. AND the final chapter was not going to be an exception.
The fifth and ultimately last game of the Finals had an equally deranged start. Denver ended in lost four of their first six possessions against some Heat that squeezed as he did Ball Arena. Louder than ever. a bad pass from Jamal Murraya steal and mate in transition for Bam Adebayo They set off the alarms on the first play. But Miami also started hastily, shooting triples at the first change and accelerating the actions too much.
With both sides ‘sounded off’ by the erratic start, the Nuggets chose to look for their best psychiatrist and let Nikola Jokic order your thoughts. The pvot, as sensible as he is accustomed, began to find your companions with apparent ease until adding a dozen of what the statistics refer to as potential assistance. But today the failures from the triple, which the Nuggets have never abused, gave Miami the reason to place the game where they wanted from the hand of Adebayo and Strus as a couple and not as free verses.
The degree of madness in the first quarter can be summed up in the two minutes played by DeAndre Jordan, his block and positive partial. or in Michael Porter Jr.often giddy scorer who starred in his party more serious of the Finals with hyperactivity on the rebound and attacking the paint (a single triple in the first period).
The first part was sealed with the same sign, with each other decapitated, and with the party paying homage to some Heat who care little who their fate is while Denver remained handcuffed. Miami kept throwing shots that were less reprehensible, but with Kyle Lowry inspired and the free kick on his side went seven up at the never better called break.
Around the divan, however, the poor selection of pitches began to take its toll on those from South Florida. Jokic began to punish each and every one of the possessions in which a one-on-one was generated, and Miami ended up locked in the cage of its own deliriumsurviving bluntly before the logic imposed by Denver.
The first possession of the last quarter put the locals ahead who, feeling comfortable in the mud, they weighed their few moments of lucidity to dismount to Miami, it seemed, for the last time. It was then, four minutes from the end and with the Nuggets up seven points when the ‘capo’ of the asylum made an appearance. Until that moment, Jimmy Butler had 8 points and 2/12 shooting from the fieldfour possessions later his locker was in 19 points thanks to two triples, three free throws and a suspension of which he has been missing all the Finals. One up.
This story had already been seen before, but in front of it was not Denver, who did not even need a timeout to reflect, will take MPJ off the track because of the defensive bleeding that he was assuming and close the game with the office of Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on both sides. They had tamed madness by looking into her eyes to win the first ring in her history.
And in the prelude to the celebration, in the usually tearful moment of hugging the rival, Nikola Jokic walked slowly. Relax because this time they had not managed to push their patience to the limit as happened last year before golden state. Salute your fierce opponents like someone who dispatches strangers at a party with protocol. Finally, the microphone of Lisa Salters (ESPN) to immortalize the moment: “The job is done, we can go home“.
