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The Nuggets protected the ball like it was caked in olive oil.
To their credit, they shot like they were on fire.
Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray each buried clutch 3-pointers late Friday night as the Nuggets survived the feisty Heat, 124-119. Denver hung on despite 20 turnovers, including a handful of egregious mistakes.
It took a blistering shooting night — 17 for 28 from 3-point range — to ensure they weren’t undone by their miscues. That same level of carelessness won’t work come Sunday, when the 23-12 Nuggets host the surging Celtics.
Bones Hyland buried five 3-pointers, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope knocked down four, and Vlatko Cancar drained three from outside. Jokic sunk two from deep to pair with his 19-point, 12-rebound, 12-assist triple-double. It was his eighth of the season, tied for the most in the NBA.
Heat sniper Tyler Herro carried Miami in the second half, finishing the game with a team-high 26 points. Jimmy Butler added 17 points and eight assists.
As a team, the Nuggets shot 59% from the field accompanied by three quarters of underwhelming defense.
Whatever defensive adjustments were made at halftime didn’t land until after the Heat opened the third quarter on a 9-0 run. Fueled by more turnovers, Denver’s mistakes kept giving Miami life. On one, Jokic tried to expedite a possession by passing ahead to Aaron Gordon, but Denver’s power forward hadn’t yet turned around. If nothing else, and this wasn’t saying much, it was a turnover born of aggression.
Jokic seemed to take the deficit personally. He became more animated with the officials and more aggressive amid the offensive sets. If he wasn’t facilitating the scoring with his clever looks, he was outright lowering his shoulder and seizing possessions. As Herro propelled Miami’s offense with a handful of 3-pointers, Jokic spearheaded Denver’s. The Nuggets got one more boost when Cancar, already with a strong offensive game, drew a late charge on Butler. After conceding 33 points in the third, Denver entered the fourth trailing 90-85.
Rather than flip the page on Denver’s ugly collapse at Sacramento on Wednesday night, Nuggets coach Michael Malone addressed the team with why they’d lost: transition defense.
It was a point of emphasis, again, on Friday.
Miami arrived in Denver boasting a top-five team in terms of steals. The last thing the Nuggets could afford to do was yield easy buckets, especially with a defense trying to find itself.
“Every night’s a test,” Malone said before the game. “I mean that sincerely.”
The Nuggets carried a 60-57 lead into the break after shooting 8 of 15 from 3-point range in the first half. No player was more responsible for that number than Hyland, who caught fire in the second quarter.
He buried three 3-pointers in the first few minutes of the quarter, as each triple got progressively deeper. The first was from 26 feet, the next was from 27, and he capped his run with a 31-foot bomb to the delight of Ball Arena. He hit one more before the quarter was over for good measure.
Denver’s offense as a whole thrived around 18 first-half assists, including seven from Jokic.
But despite shooting just 38% in the first half, Miami kept it close with nine offensive rebounds and eight 3-pointers of its own.
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