It's Denver vs. Miami ... finally!

Let the buildup to the NBA Finals begin at last here in the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza after the Heat survived an Eastern Conference finals roller-coaster like we've never seen

I can't quite work out how the Miami Heat, so small outside of Bam Adebayo, are going to be able to cope with Nikola Jokić.

I can't imagine how Miami, after what it just went through in the Eastern Conference finals, is going to shift smoothly into the Denver altitude when the Heat A) are facing such a short turnaround before Thursday night's Game 1 after flying in straight from Boston early Tuesday and B) won't soon forget that they could have enjoyed a much more appetizing leadup to the Finals opener had they beaten Boston in Game 4, 5 or 6.

I can't shake the idea that the combination of rust and nerves, as the Nuggets step for the first time onto the mammoth Finals stage that does take some adjusting to no matter how much anyone tries to downplay it, makes them vulnerable to a Game 1 defeat despite everything I just wrote in the previous two paragraphs.

And I can't believe how much I’m still struggling with my Finals pick out of respect for Jimmy Butler, Erik Spoelstra and the rest of the weary Heaters and the fact that, you know, they just overcame their status as the first team since the 1958-59 Lakers — in an eight-team NBA as NBA.com’s John Schuhmann reminds us — to reach the championship round after being outscored during the regular season.

By eliminating 58-win Milwaukee and 57-win Boston.

The Heat are the East’s No. 8 seed thanks to a play-in game loss to Atlanta. They have played four times since Denver’s last game and rank as the NBA’s first No. 8 seed to get this far since New York in the lockout-shortened 1999 season. The Nuggets, meanwhile, have been the West’s best team for months and are at 8-0 at home in these playoffs.

So the matchup of this season’s last two surviving teams provides a fantastic contrast … provided you can stomach all the inevitable chatter about how bad the TV ratings are bound to be compared to the Celtics vs. Lakers reunion that ESPN/ABC surely wanted.

I don’t want to give it all away now, but I can promise two things for the rest of the 2022-23 season: 1. My Finals pick will be made in permanent ink Wednesday when I publish a new predictions thread that will enable everyone in the community to join me in officially registering a Finals prediction; 2. I have a special and ambitious (and very nostalgic) expanded coverage plan for the Finals that I will be (nervously) unveiling Thursday. And league sources say some of it — get this — will actually be syndicated!

Big moment for this little Substack.

To the Finals …

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Programming Notes

With my podcast partner Chris Haynes of Turner Sports in transit on Monday night, I recorded a solo Instant Reaction Edition of #thisleague UNCUT soon after Miami went into Boston and beat the Celtics in Game 7 as just the fourth team in league history to need a Game 7 to advance after blowing a 3-0 series lead. That essay-style pod can be found here:

Chris and I are on course to reconvene Wednesday with a podcast that features a key Finals participant. In keeping with the theme established near the end of my lead item, I don’t want to jinx anything by revealing too much now, but our scheduled guest should enable us to provide a sensational and unique audio preview for these Finals.

Please rate, review and subscribe to #thisleague UNCUT, which drops twice weekly, via Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods.

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Numbers Game

🏀 6

Miami has won its last six Game 1s — six! — dating to last season’s playoffs.

🏀 37-39

The Heat would have to upset the Nuggets in the Finals to officially make this The Year of the Lower Seed in the NBA, but it’s close enough through three rounds of these playoffs to keep that discussion alive. Lower seeds are 21-19 in the East and 16-20 in the West for a 37-39 mark overall.

🏀 34-27

Throw out the Nuggets’ 12-3 postseason mark and lower seeds are 34-27 thus far in the 2022-23 NBA playoffs.

🏀 27

My old friend Micah Adams of The Sporting News unearthed this gem Tuesday: Denver’s four opponents in the playoffs include two No. 8 seeds (Minnesota and Miami), No. 4 Phoenix and the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers. Those seedings total 27, which Adams notes is the easiest path in league history to a championship on paper. The previous "easiest path" belonged to the 1999 San Antonio Spurs with a composite seeding of 22, including eighth-seeded New York in the Finals.

🏀 8

In Game 7, Boston’s Jaylen Brown became only the third player in league history to total at least eight turnovers and eight missed 3-pointers in the same playoff game. The only others, according to veteran Celtics broadcast statistician Dick Lipe, are James Harden (twice) and Russell Westbrook.

🏀 .212

More from Lipe: In Boston’s last nine games after being named to the league’s All-NBA team on May 10, Brown averaged just 19.4 points per game on 42.8% shooting from the field and 21.2% shooting from 3-point range.

🏀 .602/.489/.875

Miami’s Caleb Martin, one of four undrafted playoff stalwarts for the Heat alongside Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Duncan Robinson, had shooting splits of 60.2% from the field, 48.9% from 3-point range and 87.5% from the free-throw line in the Eastern Conference finals.

🏀 2024

Just a reminder that the suddenly popular Martin, formerly a two-way player in both Charlotte and Miami, is under contract with the Heat through at least the 2023-24 season after signing a three-year, $20.4 million deal last summer. Martin holds a $7.1 million player option for the 2024-25 season.

🏀 32.5

Just a reminder, furthermore, that Denver’s Jamal Murray averaged 32.5 points per game in the Nuggets’ four-game sweep of the Lakers in the Western Conference finals with shooting splits of 52.5% from the field, 40.5% from 3-point range and 95.0% from the line.

🏀 3

My buddies at HoopsHype noted this week that this will be just the third NBA Finals in league history with only one All-Star on each team. Chicago’s Michael Jordan and Utah’s Karl Malone were the All-Star twosome in 1998, followed by San Antonio’s Tim Duncan and New Jersey’s Jason Kidd in 2003 and now joined by Denver’s Nikola Jokić and Miami’s Bam Adebayo in 2023. That’s right: The Heat’s Jimmy Butler was snubbed from the All-Star Game by Eastern Conference coaches and yet wound up on the All-NBA team at season’s end. It’s the second time in Butler’s career he’s hit that rare double.