DENVER — After a couple of weeks on the road bouncing between Denver and Miami, here are a few final thoughts on these NBA Finals, things that mostly didn’t fit into other stories I was writing.
• It’s a copycat league, and in the wake of Denver winning an NBA title by walking a path of patience and stability, and building around home-gown stars, you’re going to hear a lot more owners and general managers give lip service to wanting to do this with their franchises. Few, if any, will have the patience to see it through. The next time a star player — even one considered a culture killer — becomes available, they will forget their words and chase him. Patience and stability will be out the door.
• This is not just an NBA thing, but across all professional sports in America — can we stop having the team owner be the first to accept the trophy and speak after a championship? That’s not who earned the trophy, it’s not who the fans in the building or watching at home want to see, and it’s not celebrating the sport. It doesn’t fit. Give the spotlight to the players and coach.
• Maybe the most under-discussed aspect of what decided this series: Denver was just bigger. Across the board. That size advantage led to Heat players driving the lane and re-thinking how they would get a shot off — passing out of the paint or double-clutching — far more than they did in any other series (the Celtics’ Robert Williams also had some of that impact). Tall and good beats small and good.
• Jimmy Butler refused to talk about it or use it as an excuse, but his ankle injury pretty clearly robbed him of some explosiveness and lift during this series.
“Zero. My ankle is fine,” Butler said in the most Butler of ways when asked about the impact of the ankle after Game 5. “We just didn’t win. There’s no excuse. They beat us. That’s all I got.”
Butler first injured the ankle against the Knicks and re-injured it at the end of the Celtics series. With Aaron Gordon leading the way Denver defended him well, but this was also not the same Jimmy Butler we saw against the Bucks or early in the Celtics series. And when we did see some lift from him and with his shot — like during the 13-point run late in the fourth quarter of Game 5 — it stood out.
• Miami believes in winning the possession game every night — get up more shots than your opponent, give yourself a chance. They did that for stretches of the Finals, but that strategy requires hitting some shots. They struggled with that, with an ugly 50.9 true shooting percentage for the series (for comparison, the Nuggets had a 58.5 true shooting percentage, which would be a little above the league regular season average).
• Could Tyler Herro have provided some offensive spark? Probably not. While he was cleared to play in Game 5, Spoelstra never put him in. To take two months off from playing and then get thrown into the intensity and physicality of the NBA Finals against the long defenders of the Nuggets, that is too much to ask. Still, Spoelstra wondered.
“It’s just a really tough call and I’ll probably have to wrestle with that all summer,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve never been in an experience like this. I just know that the way this game was played is totally different than — you can’t even compare it. It’s another sport in the regular season….
“That’s the hardest-played, most physical competition you can have, and that would be a tough thing for a guy that’s been out for two months that hasn’t had any kind of ramp-up. But that won’t save me from thinking about that for the next few weeks.
• Bam Adebayo was brilliant and gave everything he had in the Finals. He finished as the team’s leading scorer and rebounder at 21.8 points and 12.4 rebounds a game, plus he had to guard Jokić all game long. To be sure Jokić steamrolled him at points, but don’t for a second question how hard Adebayo played. He left his heart on the floor every game. That was an All-NBA level effort.
• One of the best parts of the Finals is seeing deserving veterans get their title, even if they didn’t play much in the series. It was fun to see DeAndre Jordan walking the hallways of Ball Arena smoking a cigar and savoring the moment (he played a good three minutes in Game 5). I’m also happy for Jeff Green and Ish Smith, who will get championship rings.
• The weirdest thing in the Finals — and it wasn’t even close — was when UFC superstar Conor McGregor knocked out Burnie the Heat mascot during a skit during a timeout. This was a staged event — really a mid-game live ad with McGregor promoting a new cryotherapy pain relief spray — and Burnie came out challenging him to a fight and, well, watch for yourself.
That punch sent the man playing Burnie to the hospital, where he was given pain meds and released.
This whole thing was strange and felt wrong before it got to someone going to the hospital. Knocking out the beloved team mascot at center court was an ill-conceived promotion in concept. Also, it happened in the third quarter of Game 4, when Denver was starting to run away with the game and Heat fans were already on edge. Even before it was over, Miami fans booed McGregor and the whole spectacle. It was just weird.
• If you are ever in Miami, go have a Cuban meal in Little Havana. You will not regret it.
• The most excited Nikola Jokić seemed through the entire Finals was when he talked about fellow Serb Novak Djokovic texting him on an off-day for the tennis legend at the French Open (which Djokovic won).
“Actually, he texted me for real. Yes! He texted me. He didn’t lie,” Jokić said as his whole personality lit up. “Yes. I mean, he’s amazing, of course, in his sport and he’s making history every time. Probably he’s going to go down as one of the best ever, if not the best ever.”
• Adam Silver said at his pre-series press conference, “it would be unfair to these players and these teams in the middle of the series to announce the results of that investigation.” A noble thought, but in doing so he dragged out conversations about Morant’s action and potential punishment throughout the Finals. It was a PR error by the league, better to rip the bandaid off. Now we have that to look forward to between today and the Draft in just more than a week.
• One of the best parts of events such as the Finals or All-Star Weekend is that the NBA media are mostly genuinely good people. Getting to hang out, and share meals and drinks with these people for a couple of weeks help make some long work hours worth it.
Here is more on the Nuggets
Nuggets positioned to be back on Finals stage, maybe become a dynasty Jokić, the reluctant MVP, ends narrative he hadn’t done enough in… Jokić, Nuggets save their best for fourth quarter, with it become NBA Champions
NBA Finals notebook: Denver’s size, Butler’s ankle, much more originally appeared on NBCSports.com