Down three with 11.4 seconds left in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone elected not to use one of his two timeouts to set up one final offensive play after his team snagged a defensive rebound. Instead, Malone let guard Jamal Murray take the final shot: a solid-looking 3-pointer that rattled off the rim and out to seal the Miami Heat’s 111-108 comeback win.
It was a questionable decision by Malone, but not one he wasn’t prepared to explain. His reason not to call timeout was simple: Even though it would have given the Nuggets a chance to set up a play, it also would have allowed the Heat to set themselves defensively.
“You take a timeout, you let them get set, you let them review whatever play they think that we’re going to run and there’s a great chance that we don’t get a quality shot like Jamal got,” Malone said, ” which was on line and from my perspective, looked like it had a great chance of going in. And we’ve seen Jamal make shots like that before.
“Some nights, yeah, I think we can take the timeout. Other nights, give our guys the freedom to get out and run,” he added. “But with how well they were guarding in that quarter and how hard it was for us to generate great looks, I felt in that transition, we were gonna have the best chance to get the look that we wanted.”
The move didn’t pay off and now the series sits at a 1-1 tie.
But it wasn’t all Murray and Malone’s fault. Denver’s defense allowed the Heat to hit a blistering 17 of 35 from beyond the arc, including 11 from the undrafted quartet of Gabe Vincent, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus and Caleb Martin. Nikola Jokić put in 41 points himself in the Nuggets’ third playoff loss when their two-time MVP scored at least 40 points.
The Nuggets, who looked like juggernauts after a 104-93 win in Game 1, lost all the momentum that game after giving up multiple leads throughout Game 2. Denver led by as much as 15 points in the first half and by eight with a minute. left in the third quarter, but could not stop the Heat rally in the fourth. The Nuggets gave up 36 points and only scored 25 — equally the most points they’ve given up in any quarter this series so far and the second-fewest points scored in any quarter.
It’s back to the drawing board for the top team in the Western Conference — and now Denver heads to Miami for Game 3.