Jimmy Butler returned to the Heat’s starting line-up on Friday, January 17, against the Nuggets at the Kaseya Center, after the completion of his seven-game suspension imposed by his team.
Not only did Butler return, but Butler, who hours earlier tweeted “I’m back,” was part of Miami’s incumbent Quintero, which premiered this season in the popular white Vice shirt. While coach Erik Spoelstra said, he gives us the best chance tonight.
Butler’s contest, to which the audience also reached out, the Denver team was much superior and took a comfortable 133-113 triumph.
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In this way, the Heat (20-20) remained in the 9th place of the Eastern Conference, before facing the Spurs at home on Sunday.
Spoelstra thought he had put the best quintet with Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Haywood Highsmith, and Duncan Robinson, but the reality was another, at least offensively.
Butler improved over his previous two matches and finished with 18 points (7-15), 3 rebounds and two assists.
Miami’s best was again Herro with 22 units, despite having 2-7 in triples, in addition to compiling 5 rebounds.
The rivals are feeling too comfortable at the start of the games and you see passing basket after basket and then it generates confidence,” Herro said. Then they can’t play at the same pace and flow for the rest of the game, so I think it’s up to me and the rest of the headlines to come out with more energy.
Adebayo played in his great battle with Nikola Jokic, getting a double-double of 16 points and 11 rebounds. But his effort didn’t succeed.
Denver did his job, there’s no excuse, we have to play 82 games regardless of which team you are on, Bam indicated. So now I feel like we have to look at the details, and better understand what you know about how different teams play until they understand it as a group.
Jovic also reached 16 coming off the bench, three more than Terry Rozier, who put on 13 as well as a second-rounder. Both should have made headlines for Highsmith (2 points) and Robinson (8).
Miami shots for an acceptable 49.5 percent (27.3 percent in triples, plus 14-14 on free throws, but its defense was a disaster, allowing it to shoot for 54.3 percent (48.5 percent in triples) – the seven-time triples (16-9) made the difference.
“They [Nuggets] play very well and it’s hard to defend them,” Spoelstra said. The second half today was a little more unequal, but you know that for most of the trip, our guys played shocking minutes consistently and each of them had different moments when you know they really got noticed.
Up to 7 players highlighted by Denver Jamal Murray was the best with 30 points, along with Jokic with a triple-double of 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists, Aaron Gordon with 16, Michael Porter with 14, Julian Strawther with 14, Christian Brown with 12 and Russell Westbrook with 11.
In the first half, the Heat had no defense and the Nuggets took advantage of it to show their superiority with a comfortable 67-55 in their favor on the scoreboard, with 20 points from Murray, 12 from Jokic, and 10 from Gordon surpassing Herro’s 14 and Adebayo’s 10 by the Capital of the Sun quintet.
The first quarter ended Denver’s 30-24 lead after being up by an 11-point lead at the start of the game. Murray, Westbrook, and Jokic added 25 units, but Miami did not give up and with 7 from Herro, plus 6 from Adebayo and 5 from Jovic managed to leave little by little approaching the scoreboard, until he went only 6 at the end of the partial.
This maintained the difference after the first 4 minutes of the second, just until Murray unleashed another 11 points, for the Nuggets to extend the difference to 12, after taking the 37-31 partial, in the face of Miami’s defensive operation.
At the beginning of the third, it seemed that the game was definitely missing the Heat, who after squeezing the pace with Butler’s awakening, which reached 14 alongside Herro and Adebayo, got an 11-3 rally and approach 9. But the Nuggets recovered and equaled the fourth 31-31 to maintain the lead 98-86.
In the blink of an eye, Denver stretched the difference to the start of the last quarter and although the Capital of the Sun’s quintet tried to get back closer, the difference remained for the rest of the partial.
Already with 2:29 to play and the 127-106 score favorable to Denver Spoelstra chose to put the unusual ones to finish the process. The Nuggets took a 35-27 partial and 20-point win.