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The Heat faced three of the top five seeds in the Eastern Conference and sent them all home. Their next challenge? The Western Conference’s top team, the Nuggets.
Taking down Denver in the NBA Finals will be no easy task. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the rest of the Nuggets have been dominant in these playoffs, and they are highly motivated to capture the first title in franchise history. They will enter the championship series as the heavy favorites.
Doubt Miami at your own peril. Being the underdog is nothing new for Erik Spoelstra’s squad, and the Heat won’t be satisfied with a Finals appearance.
“We don’t play just to win the Eastern Conference,” Jimmy Butler said after the Heat’s Game 7 win over the Celtics. “We play to win the whole thing.”
How can Miami become the first No. 8 seed to win it all? Here is the Heat’s checklist for their Finals matchup with the Nuggets.
MORE: How Heat made good on Jimmy Butler’s 2022 promise
Three reasons why the Heat will win the 2023 NBA Finals
White hot 3-point shooting
After finishing the 2021-22 season with the best 3-point percentage in the league (37.9 percent), the Heat dropped down to No. 27 in 2022-23 (34.4 percent). In their Play-In Tournament games against the Hawks and Bulls, they shot 32.4 and 33.3 percent, respectively.
But when the Miami met Milwaukee and Boston in the playoffs, its shooting numbers skyrocketed. The Heat shot eight percent better from deep than the Bucks and were more than 13 percent above the Celtics.
(Even though the Heat struggled in their second-round series with the Knicks, they still had the higher 3-point percentage.)
| Round | 3PT-3PTA | 3PT% | Opp. 3PT% |
| First round | 15.4-34.2 | 45.0 | 37.0 (Bucks) |
| Conference Semifinals | 11.7-38.2 | 30.6 | 29.9 (Knicks) |
| Conference Finals | 12.7-29.3 | 43.4 | 30.3 (Celtics) |
Overall, the Heat are shooting 39.0 percent from beyond the arc in the postseason, the top mark among all playoff teams. The Nuggets are right behind them at 38.6 percent.
Simply put, the Heat can tip the scales in their direction by once again winning the 3-point battle.
Jimmy Butler’s playoff excellence
Butler may reject the idea of “Playoff Jimmy,” but the stats tell the story. He has reached another level on the playoff stage, averaging 28.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.1 steals per game with 48.3/35.6/80.6 shooting splits.
As terrific as Caleb Martin was in the Eastern Conference Finals — the Heat couldn’t have eliminated the Celtics without him — he doesn’t carry the same kind of burden on his shoulders that Butler does.
Need a bucket? Jimmy will get one. Defend the opponent’s top guard or wing? Jimmy will shut him down. Create an open shot for a teammate? Jimmy will find him.
The reverse is basically true for Butler (48 of his 60 FGs were unassisted). Which means Butler was creating almost everything for himself AND helping to generate almost half of Martin’s open looks.
— Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) May 30, 2023
Now, the question is whether Butler can be the best player in a series featuring Jokic. The Nuggets will throw Aaron Gordon, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and other tough defenders at him, but don’t forget Butler torched a Bucks team that deployed two members of the All-Defensive First Team in Jrue Holiday and Brook Lopez.
“Jimmy does everything. He does all of the intangible things,” Gordon said of Butler. “He plays the game within the game.”
Butler essentially won two games by himself in the 2020 NBA Finals. Can he complete the job this time around?
Erik Spoelstra’s coaching genius
Let’s not dismiss what Michael Malone has done over eight seasons in Denver. He is a terrific coach, and his guys are absolutely locked in.
But we’re making the case for the Heat here, not the Nuggets. So, in order for Miami to pull off another upset, Spoelstra must use every ounce of black magic in his coaching bag.
The two-time NBA champion always seems to hit the right buttons at the perfect time. As The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor noted, he unleashed a switching defense in Game 7 against the Celtics after barely utilizing that strategy in the previous matchups.
The Heat switched 40 of 58 pick-and-rolls by the Celtics in Game 7, holding them to a dismal 0.69 points per play.
It was the first time all series Miami switched on more than half of Boston’s P&Rs, per @SecondSpectrum.
Erik Spoelstra didn’t lie when he said they’d get it done. pic.twitter.com/5N67SveNor
— Kevin O’Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) May 30, 2023
Spoelstra has worthy adversaries in Malone and Jokic. Miami may not be able to lean on its 2-3 zone defense with Jokic orchestrating the Denver offense from different spots on the floor. Leaving Bam Adebayo on an island with Jokic seems like a bad idea. And double-teaming one of the greatest passers in NBA history? Yikes.
The only way to slow down the Nuggets is to mix in a variety of looks and perhaps live with Jokic as a scorer rather than a facilitator. Denver is 4-3 when Jokic scores 30 or more points in the playoffs and 8-0 when his point total is below 30.
If anyone can figure out the formula, it’s Spoelstra.