 What's the word y'all, NBA Finals Game 1 just wrapped up, let's talk about it. A lot of times I watch these games and I have like one singular pillar point that I wanna, I really wanna talk about for the majority of the video and I do quick hit us here here. Today is not one of them days man, I don't have one overarching story that is the talking point for this game one, so I'm just gonna bounce around here and there without a script, without a game plan, let's just talk about game one. I will say, no matter if it's a 20 point blowout, a buzzer beater, I'm enjoying every one of these games because at the very most, we got six more games left for the season, that's at the very most, so you should be enjoying them too, because I saw a lot of pieces on Twitter already, it just wrapped up already about how potentially boring this series can be and I honestly think that if you're, I don't wanna gatekeep anything, but like if you really enjoyed a game of basketball, there are a lot of fun things about this game one that you can be thinking about going into game two. Because obviously the Denver Nuggets continue their home court dominance where they're undefeated so far and Nicole Lioca said in this post game interview that was important because the Miami Heat had been a team to win all three of their game ones on the road so far, so they wanted to make sure they'd carry that same recipe. But even if you're a Miami Heat fan, there are things about game one that you feel pretty okay about if you believe that you can still win this series. If you pick the Miami Heat, there are pillars of this game that you say, that's who we can do and we gonna talk about that. And if you're a Denver Nuggets fan, hey you won game one and you're excited about it, you know what I'm saying? So I can see it both ways. I don't know exactly where to start. I guess we'll start with Nicole Lioca because well, he's a star player here. More specifically, let's start off with the Miami Heat usage of a zone because that plays into the way Nicole Lioca's played for the first three quarters or so. That was one of the major questions that I had about the Miami Heat going into the series. How often they use the zone? Because I rewatched the two regular season games between the two teams and Jamal Murden playing one of these games. Somebody prominent for the Heat and playing another one. So I didn't look at it and be like, oh, final score, Denver Nuggets win by four here, win by five here. Ah, they go sweet. I was trying to figure out like the skeleton of like the potential scheme going into it. Now, it's a lot different from playoff time because you talk about the regular season that one of these teams could have been on the second night of a back to back where you don't really have time to game play. Just go say go hoop because we get paid millions of dollars in hoop. But I was curious to see how much zone we got in the first game of the finals. I'm also still a little bit sick. So you might see a lot of cuts because I'm coughing, drinking water, whatever. Because in the two games in the regular season, the mind of he ran that zone a ton. And I think part of that was because they were on demand where like Orlando Robeson was getting men into one of these games. In the other game, oh man, I forgot his name. He played a couple games for the Heat earlier this season. He's a stud too. I mean, he did some crazy stuff in college. I can't remember his name. They were super short handed so they ran a lot of zone. And when they were running that zone, Nikola Jokic absolutely feasted. Like, I mean, he's one of those players that the zone typically doesn't work against because he's the best passer basketball, one of the greatest pass of all time. And he is okay with not being able to get his own shot because he trusts in regard. He trusts in Michael Pershing. He trusts Jamal Murray, KCP, and all the other people to make the shots. And as we saw through the first three quarters, well, he only attempted like five shots in the first three. And the only reason he started to take more in the fourth quarter, it's a mind of he wanted a huge run, 11-0 run to start the 40s. Like, I guess I'll do it myself then. And then he ended up ending with 27 points. 27 points, 14 assists, 10 rebounds, and only two turnovers. Yeah, Jokic was different tonight. I mean, he was the same tonight because this is what he's been doing. So through the first two quarters when they did run the zone, the different nuggets kind of took advantage of it. And that's saying something because they didn't shoot a ridiculous clip. I mean, the first half, it felt like they were 45% from through the first half. Only 11 three-point attempts were surprising. It felt like a lot more maybe because Michael Porter Jr. was just letting them fly. But when we get to the second half, they shot 3 of 16, right? And at 3 of 16 is a combination of missing shots, but also a combination of the zone working a little bit differently. Again, it's not like they ran the zone for 48 minutes, but like in the first half, it felt like when they ran the zone, I want to re-watch some of these clips. It was still bam on the bio at the point of attack from Nikola Jokic who's sitting at like the free throw line area. And there's so much movement outside Nikola Jokic when he gets the ball that makes it so confusing. There was a few times in this game where like there was so much miscommunication where Jimmy Butler was looking at him and he's looking at this guy. And it was a lot of that. And Nikola Jokic started dissecting. And in the fourth quarter specifically, Haywood Highsmith got in. They used, and I'm going to say this very lightly because I know that this was a game plan from the Lakers that worked for like three minutes and then it never worked again. You remember Rui Hachimura got the assignment on Jokic for like three minutes and he calls them to miss a few times. They did something similar with Haywood Highsmith that allowed bam on the bio to roam. And because bam on the bio is now clogged and painted a little bit more, now instead of Nikola Jokic is getting to the basket and getting one body, it was two bodies at minimum. I'm saying all of that. And the fourth quarter was his highest output shooting quarter. So I mean, I mean, it forced some of the other people to shoot. And I'm looking at it now. They shot OFA for three in this fourth quarter. And then you get the other side of the token where the heat finally started to shoot threes and hit and what they, they were shooting them all day. But actually he started to hit threes. Again, I'm going to get Highsmith a lot of love because I didn't know exactly how much PT he would be getting in this series. He was a guy that you couldn't take off the floor in this one. Let's be honest, they started that run in the fourth quarter without Jimmy Butler being on the floor. And a lot of that was Highsmith given energy playing the defense, hitting shots, ducking the ball. Like he was doing everything. And look Hayward Highsmith is not a big, he might be six fast, six, six with long wings. But I was curious to see how much of the other guys that we see. And that's, that's Cody Zeller. That's Highsmith. That's Kevin Love. And we saw some Cody Zeller. I don't know how much more of that we're going to be seeing. Actually, I thought he was okay in the four minutes that he got. He didn't hurt the team, which is something you need when bam, it's not on the floor. No Kevin Love, a lot of Hayward Highsmith. I keep doing that. I always call him Hayward. Hayward. Highsmith say to Haywood. It's wood, haywood. Your mommy, he said, like I said, you feel okay with this loss. Obviously, you don't get a lot of opportunities to feel okay about losses because if you get four of those, you out. But again, there are things that you felt good about them on a bio gave you a very good performance. One of his best performances of the entire playoff run, if I'm being honest, where he was aggressive on the offense side of the ball. Again, he's limited defensively only because he's going against Jokic. You know what I'm saying? Like he's one of the best defensive basketball, but he's going against arguably the best offensive player in ball right now. So like there's so much he can do by himself, but eventually you don't need Jimmy Butler to wake up. Eventually you're going to need it, man. And during all of the interviews before, you know, the press run before the NBA finals, he was asked about his ankle and he said he's not allowing his ankle to be some type of scapegoat excuse or whatever because he's obviously playing through something right now, but he's still got to wake up because in this game, the Miami Heat shot two free throws and that was Highsmith. It was none of the starters got to the free to light at all. No bam on a bio, but Jimmy Butler is usually the guy. Again, one of the things that people hate about Jimmy Butler, but it's also a huge part of his game and it's effective part of his game. Get into the basket, draw fouls and a triple pump fake, whatever. We got none of that. I don't know if buddy pump faked it all today, which is it's Jimmy Butler. It's Jimmy Butler. Now I know I listen, I know I criticize him a little bit throughout the the end of the the Boston Celtic series that he was pumping a little bit too much. Charlie's on too many fouls. We can't go from too many fouls to zero fouls completely. We got to find some some middle room because we get to the free throw as easy baskets. You know what I'm saying? Easy opportunity for you and your team because you are a good free throw shooting team. And I don't think he scored in the fourth court. Again, they went on that run without him, so he sat on the bench a little bit longer in the fourth court than normally would. But still, if you're going to win the NBA finals, you need Jimmy Butler to have Jimmy Butler performances. And I don't mean 52 points. What do you do 52? 48, whatever it was. I don't mean that, but he got to give you way more than what he did today. Also the shooting one there. One of my major concerns with the Miami Heat going into the series is the different nuggets for the most part is such a potent offense with all of the actions when Nicole Yoke is doing this thing. And Jamal Murray was incredible again tonight that they're going to be able to put up points more likely than not. Again, they went through that stretch early fourth quarter when they couldn't. But for the most part, their offense is going to be their offense and it's going to be good. The Miami Heat don't have that same luxury. Like so far in the playoffs, their offense has been amazing. You know what I'm saying? Like the first round, they shot crazy from three to second round, they didn't. But it was against the Knicks, so they didn't need to shoot crazy from three. And then the last series, they did a game. And I feared that if they had a game where they didn't shoot the lights out, it was going to be a little bit tougher for them. And for the most part, this game, through the first three quarters, they couldn't hit anything. Max Juice, and it was 0 points, 0 for 10 from the field. Like that's a that's a stat line that Max Juice has put up. And yeah, I do believe that when we get to the nitty gritty and try to muck it out games where it's like down to the why you're 92 to 92, that's where the heat have their advantage. When we talk about going stretches like the Denver Nuggets did where they can go on a 14 to four run or something, like it's going to be hard to keep up. So they have to find a way to keep their offense steady for the moments that the Denver Nuggets do have the three minutes of bad shooting like you saw because because if Jimmy was more aggressive and had a normal again, just a normal Jimmy by the game, I'm not saying 40 or 50, they're in this game a lot better when that fourth quarter run comes around. And instead of them just boiling down to 10 points, maybe it was six, maybe it was four, you know, I'm saying, so they need to be able to just hold on long enough for the Nuggets to potentially go a little bit cold. And then that's when you execute and they then do that today. But I don't know, man, again, I'm just enjoying all of this. This is, in my opinion, shaping up to be a good finals matchup through and through. Is it four? Is it seven? I don't know. It's not really relevant to me. But through this first game, I feel good that we're going to get a good series no matter the length of it. That's how I feel. I didn't talk much about Jamal Murray other than acknowledging how good of a game he had for it to be. I mean, everybody here except for KCP's first NBA finals game, they felt ready for the moment. Aaron Gordon early on was taking advantage of the undersized man he because Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter, Junior, Nikola Jokic, all of these dudes are either the same height or taller than the tallest man in the Miami Heat. You know what I'm saying? So a lot of times Aaron Gordon was switched and he got Gabe Vinson on his button. He was just going right up and over it, which is, you know, something that you will take a smooth 14-16 points from Aaron Gordon any day, because you know, he's going to give it defensively. I was actually surprised that we didn't see as much Aaron Gordon on Jimmy Butler. Now I feel like if Jimmy Butler starts to cook, that's going to be something they do. But I thought KCP did a good job defensively, containing Jimmy Butler and the possessions that he had it. Bruce Brown is turning to like a give me the ball with two seconds to go. I don't care. I take the shot from 20 feet, 20, 30, 40 feet out if I need to. I can do that. And the non-Jokic minutes weren't awful. They weren't great, but they weren't awful. And I think that's a good sign. So for game two, I'm not completely sure if I'll be here to do a little recap for y'all. I'm going to Toronto tomorrow morning. And I might be back for it, but I'm just, I'm saying no promises, because this is the way I work. This is the way it works. The Denver Nuggets win game one, Kenny drop a video. And if the Miami Heat win game two, every heat fan in existence is in my mentions, oh, so you don't drop a video about us. I'm letting you know now that I might not be here to drop a game two reaction slash recap. Okay. Great. I hope we're on the same page. Even though I'm saying this right now, I know there's going to be some people that still tweeting at me because I can see a heat fan not watching this video because they lost. You know what I'm saying? But again, I know this thing is a good loss, especially when you get to the nitty gritty of the last NBA finals. But there are some things you could take away that you feel solid about because Caleb Martin, who was almost the Eastern Conference finals MVP, didn't give you anything and the Max Truce didn't give you anything either. Do you expect that to happen for three more games? It could. Again, these are players that have showed that they're really good basketball players, but they're also normal than they know they play better than they normally do. If that makes sense. I don't know. I just see hopefully for game two, but if not, you give me.