Perhaps if the series had been tied 2-2, it would have been different. But with the Miami Heat facing elimination, guard Tyler Herro was made available for Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night in Denver.
Herro (broken right hand) was upgraded to questionable on the Heat’s injury report the morning of Game 5. He hadn’t played since the first game of the playoffs in Milwaukee.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Spoelstra said before the game Monday.
Ninety minutes before Game 4 in Miami, the coach had struck a different tone that indicated Herro’s chances to return during this series were more of an unlikelihood.
“He just started this process while we were in Denver,” Spoelstra said at the time. “So it’s one thing to be able to go through all of this. It’s another thing to be cleared to play an NBA Finals game.”
Cognizant of the potential consequences to the Heat’s chemistry in an elimination game, Spoelstra said Monday night that he wasn’t planning to implement Herro to the extent that it would “disrupt” the team.
“It’s just not realistic for him to step into the role that he was doing before,” Spoelstra said.
In the regular season, Herro averaged 20.1 points on eight 3-point attempts per game. He shot 43.9% from the field, 37.8% from beyond the arc and a league-leading 93.4% from the foul line.
Did Malone sleep night before Game 5?
Never one to lose his sense of scope, Nuggets coach Michael Malone waxed poetic about his nerves going into a possible championship-clinching game before tipoff.
Asked whether he slept Sunday night, Malone deadpanned: “I slept like a baby. I got up every two hours and cried.”
Malone recalled back to Game 1 of the Finals, when his youngest daughter asked if he was nervous.
“I was like, really, at that point, I was not nervous,” he said. “I was excited about the opportunity. I think the reason that myself, our coaches, our players are not nervous is because we worked so hard to get here, and we are prepared.”
Malone has taken to the practice of attempting to trick his players into thinking the roles are reversed whenever the Nuggets have an opportunity to close out a series. In this case, that meant emphasizing that Denver needed to approach Game 5 as if the Heat led 3-1.
“It’s easy to talk about,” Malone said, “but it will be evident early in the game to see if we are playing with that desperation and that urgency that we need to — if we are going to close it out tonight here at home.
“But our guys have shown just great focus and discipline throughout the entirety of these playoffs. I think it’s 19 playoff games we’ve played, and from the lead-in week to the first round against Minnesota and throughout, and today, in our shootaround, our guys have been really locked in.”
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