Denver should win it easily. Miami has great coaching but they can only win through exploiting weaknesses. Denver will almost never get lost in games like Boston did. Jokic is no Tatum or brown. On top of that Miami is tired. Denver has home court and altitude advantage. I am not even sure the heat can be mentally strong after their long run and over achievement. Denver in 5 or 4.
Highly likely Miami finds themselves in an early hole in the series--mentally and physically exhausted and coming into Denver and its league-best home court advantage. It's hard to battle back when down early even when the talent level is equal. And the talent level is not equal... not even close.
Denver are the favs no doubt, but Riley teams are always mentally tough since the Mourning era, well that is the narrative that is put out there about their practice/conditioning program being so strict/demanding The Heat are battle tested and ready being the last month and change of their reg season up to this point were basically play-in(off) games
It's going to be a boring series because the refs aren't a factor. I'm sure the the TV ratings are going to drop like a rock.
If the Nuggets' players have adjusted to a high-altitude, low-oxygen environment, and actually do have an advantage, they also can get any of a large number of possible symptoms as they de-acclimate to Miam and return to a lower altitude. Climbers and athletes have documented these physiological effects. HADAS, the name of this de-acclimation syndrome, is particularly significant in China, where millions of temporary workers migrate from the high plateaus of Qinghai and Xinjiang back to low altitude homes. So it's a basically a level playing field no matter.
Even if that's true (I live in CO and never felt ill effects going back down to Houston to visit family, so I'm skeptical)... Denver has HC advantage in the series
Shame on you Trent From Houston. You asked it wrong. "If the Heat were to win the Finals this year, do you think it would be a top 3 or 5 most difficult championship run that we have ever seen?" – from Trent in Houston "Off the top of my head, I would say yes. But ultimately I would need more time to think about it. I think we would look at it kind of like Dirk’s championship with Dallas in 2011." -JCrossover https://www.nba.com/news/nba-mailbag-may-31-2023 You should have asked. "If the Heat were to win the Finals this year, do you think it would be the most difficult championship run since the '95 Houston Rockets?" Mavs were a 3rd seed with a deeper roster than the Rockets, facing the decent Blazers in the 1st round. Lakers in 2nd round with Kobe playing the worst maybe he's ever played since those 4 air balls in Utah. 23ppg 3rpg, 2.5apg at only 32? Awful. 22 year old KD and Russ and 21 year old Harden. Please. Then needed 6 to beat LeFraud being only the 3rd best player on his own team? Still one of the major reasons why he will never be the GOAT(and another reason to believe he would never be as good as he is attacking the basket being met by good defensive bigs who he routinely lost to the rare times he ever had to face any). 17ppg, outscored by Terry. Pathetic. Hakeem and co. would have swept through that entire playoff run!
