Well there you have it folks. @Sarni has spoken, the Miami Heat are your 2023 NBA Champions
NBA 2022-2023
- Thread starter charlton66
- Start date
When is game 1 of the finals?
My main wish was fulfilled by the Nuggets (preventing the Lakers from winning it), I really don't have a soft spot for either. May the most deserving team win.Speaking of that, I say Nuggets comfortably in the Finals. Let's see if I can be wrong even about that.
I don't really have a huge preference between the two. Like both of them, don't really totally love either. Just two likeable sides with their own, very different, merits. I don't think the audience stats are going to be very good for the NBA though.
I just hope to have a long final, 7 is the dream with tight games in each one of them
Thursday night/Friday morning
Btw, I'm gonna try and counter Sarni's jinx, except I do actually think the Heat will win, in 6
Jimmy already a HOF'er or does he need his ring first?
There's no way Nuggets won't win a single game. It just won't happen, there's 0% chance of a Miami sweep.
You know what you have to do with this...
He has to be.
he's cringe and try hard
Easy HOFer when players who have achieved a lot less than him are HOFers
Easy-peasy in the end for the Heat. Three wins in Boston, surely this hasn't happened many times before.
Place your bets!
Nuggets should destroy the Heat. Maybe Heat has some magical defense that I am unable to recognize, but to me they seem very average. Jokic and the crew should be able to carve them like pumpkin.
Man if both of us have said that, it's done for the Nuggets. Kiss of death right here.
ExoduS will say after the result that the result was obvious!
“I never said it was obvious to me”
Nah. This one is too easy to call. It is obvious that Nuggets will easily handle them. I predict this to go to max 5 games - if Denver decides to celebrate back home.
Ah, so Perk went full homer again. Comical. Still defies explanation how he was retained on ESPN when early evidence showed he's a garbage analyst and full of himself. Stephen A. probably did him some favors behind the scenes.
A few pages back I responded about the lowest seeded side to make a Finals, I had the 95 Rockets as a 6th seed. But the 99 Knicks made as an 8th seed but lost to the Spurs whereas the Rockets won it in 95. Miami becomes the second 8th seed in the Finals and I predict will suffer the same fate as the Knicks.
https://en.as.com/nba/what-is-the-lowest-seed-to-ever-make-it-to-the-nba-finals-n/
https://en.as.com/nba/what-is-the-lowest-seed-to-ever-make-it-to-the-nba-finals-n/
Bob Myers has called it quits.
Perhaps it will be so. But, if the Heat find a way to nick a win at Denver in the opening two games of the series, they may find a way to drag the series all the way to six or seven games. As for that Knicks team, they stood no chance against Duncan/Robinson without Ewing. It was a surprise they weren't swept by Spurs. It was a miracle they got past the Pacers without Ewing for most of the series.
I’ve been following the post season and it’s been brilliant, hope the final series is a good. Admittedly I’m not the most knowledgeable about net ball 
but if Lebron & Anthony Davis couldn’t cope with Jokic, how the hell are the Heat going to handle him? Could well be a white wash by the Nuggets.
but if Lebron & Anthony Davis couldn’t cope with Jokic, how the hell are the Heat going to handle him? Could well be a white wash by the Nuggets.You are in the right place then. We are all clueless.I’ve been following the post season and it’s been brilliant, hope the final series is a good. Admittedly I’m not the most knowledgeable about net ball
Bam is better suited to both guard him 1on1 and especially in the p&r with Murray. Heat play a nasty zone when they need to(which yeah, against Jokic it would boil down to giving him different looks in the hopes of confusing him), and unless Duncan Robinson is on the floor they have no weak defender. Jokic is Jokic, so he will get his anyways, but Miami with Spo scheming is probably the best you can do at finding ways to limit Jokic this side of having Joel Embiid. And the Heat have been shooting lights out from 3 pretty much all playoffs, and the Nuggets don't really have the inside presence to keep Butler from scoring at will, and Spo is going to coach rings around MaloneI’ve been following the post season and it’s been brilliant, hope the final series is a good. Admittedly I’m not the most knowledgeable about net ball
Unless Aaron Gordon plays the series of his life defensively, going through every pick and staying attached to Jimmy like a shadow, the Nuggets will need to get creative
I saw Nurse to 76ers, it could be interesting.
Your obviously a lot more knowledgeable then I am! Just seems to me that a guy (Jokic) that size yet that skillful has been unplayable the past month, and his teammates are hardly mugs as well.
Jokic is pretty much unplayable if his shot is falling. But there ways to make things harder for him, and most importantly his scoring is not something to worry too much about. It's his passing that's the real killer for defences. Jokic averaging 40 ppg with 4 assists is something the Heat would take in a hearbeat, and something they might be capable of forcing. And they have the defenders to slow Murray down as well
Ultimately it's not a stoppable offence, but if you can get them from 120+ in offensive rating to, say, 115, they become beatable. This series will be as much about what the Nuggets do to limit Butler and the Heat's 3P% as Jokic/Murray imo. Spoelstra will make sure of that. Add to that Lowry and Spo are champions and Jimmy and Bam played in the finals before. Only nugget with that experience is old man Jeff Green
Heat should also get Herro back at some point
Playoffs are different and they never met in it but i am yet to see Bam guard Jokic at any decent level in regular season. Think Miami best chance is Spo, without repeating myself x1000, Malone are yet to be testing in situation where he needs to adapt on the fly and in those situations he is lost, better chance to give Jokic whiteboard and sit.
Ah good old forever minus box score Jeff but think KCP has big role among them, regarding exp.
What I meant is that Jokic has so many different aspects to his game, not just scoring wise. It like facing Shaq O’Neil and John Stockton in one.
Nuggets are -9 evens in game one. Do you think this line is too strong then?
No, game 1 will be a blow out
Heat will steal game 2, blow out win game 3, tight win game 4, blow out loss game 5, JIMMY VULT it game 6
Don't open up my old wounds. Goddamn Spurs
Bam's too small for Jokic I think - honestly think Jokic is going to have an all-time series against him and the heat. Averaging 30+ points, a triple double. In terms of 'the best you can do at finding ways to limit Jokic', I think that's crazy talk when the Heat have Bam and... no-one, while the Celtics would have had Horford and Rob Williams, often at the same time.
Bam is strong enough that Jokic would have a harder time just going through him compared to AD. Yes he's too small, but he's explosive and can make his shot a bit harder. More importantly, he can switch the Murray/Jokic p&r, and he's quick enough to recover on Jokic if they try to take advantage of the switch that way
And even more importantly, their coach is Spoelstra. Yeah the Celtics probably would have been the best team possible at finding ways to limit Jokic, the same way they managed to limit Embiid late in the series, thanks to their 2 bigs, but I trust Spo to find solutions
The key for the Heat would be to turn Jokic into a pure scorer - if he's scoring 40 or even 50 but isn't involving his teammates, the Nuggets are beatable. If he goes for 25/30 points and 10+ assists, you are dead
Think that Heat are defensively well equipped. No one can stop Jokić, but also no one can stop Butler imo. Gordon can do a solid job, but Jimmy will still have great finals. The Nuggets in 6 for me. Murray will be the key again, if he has close to 30pts per game the Nuggets win.
The longer the series, chances for the Heat will grow. You don't want them breathing at your neck.
The longer the series, chances for the Heat will grow. You don't want them breathing at your neck.