After the Heat stormed back to win Game 2 of the NBA Finals on the road, the prevailing wisdom was that they figured out how to keep the Nuggets in check offensively, and if they could keep hitting some clutch shots, they could at least win one game at home and essentially turn the NBA Finals into a best-of-three series.
Needless to say, that hasn’t happened. After scoring 111 points in Game 2, the Heat scored 94 and 95 points in Games 3 and 4, respectively. In 3 out of the 4 games so far, they’ve failed to score more than 95 points. We mentioned earlier that the Heat would simply have to score more to win this series. Once again, it was the Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo show on offense. They scored 45 points combined, while the other 7 players who recorded minutes in the game scored a combined 50 points. Max Strus and Gabe Vincent were complete nonfactors once again. They combined to go 1-10 from the floor. Simply put, the Heat haven’t gotten enough from their role players. It was reasonable to expect a slight regression to the mean, when compared to how they played in the first 3 rounds of the playoffs. However, not having Tyler Herro in this series has proven to be very problematic.
Now, to extend the series, Miami has to do what they did in Game 2. Having to go on the road and win again in Denver is a lot to ask for. The Heat have certainly shown an astounding amount of resilience, but they’re going to have dig deep. Butler and Adebayo need to continue doing what they are doing, but the Heat have to get better performances from their role players. Just like in Game 2, it will probably take around 110 points from the Heat to keep this series going. They’ve shown they can do it. Now they just need to do it when the lights are at their brightest.