Nobody anticipated that the Miami Heat would travel to Denver and win Game 2 on their own court, but yet they managed to do it. Many people, including Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, have tried to figure out exactly how it happened.
Coach Steve Kerr and Draymond Green discussed Game 2 between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat in the most recent episode of The Draymond Green Show.
“You mentioned them starting Love, that allowed Jimmy Butler guard Murray,” Steve Kerr said. “To me, I haven’t talked to Spo or anything like that, I can see them in their coaches meeting saying Murray is the head of the snake, not Jokic.”
Steve Kerr believes that the Miami Heat chose to prioritize Jamal Murray over Nikola Jokic. It constrained the team’s options by treating Murray as the snake’s head.
“When you play a team you sort of realize, wait a second, that guy is going to dominate no matter what we do, so this is the head of the snake,” Kerr said. “I think they just decided Murray is the guy we’ve got to stop. So, you start Love and put Jimmy Butler on Murray. Then you saw, they were blitzing Murray and trying everything to take him out of the game.”
In all honesty, Jamal Murray wasn’t even really stopped that well by the Miami Heat. He finished with 18 points, 10 assists, 4 rebounds, and only 1 turnover on 47/38/100 shooting. In the fourth quarter, the Miami Heat experienced what happens occasionally when a team simply gets hot. The decisive factor in their victory was their hot shooting.
Leave a Reply