Miami Heat veterans Kevin Love, Kyle Lowry familiar with 3-1 gap in NBA Finals

Jun. 11—With all the veterans in the Miami Heat locker room, they're uniquely covered for any situation a team could find itself in during the playoffs.

After nearly becoming the first team to blow a 3-0 series lead, they're now on the other side of another daunting task — down 3-1 in the NBA Finals against the Nuggets.

Teams that have taken a 3-1 series lead in the Finals are 35-1 all-time. The Heat just so happen to have a key member of the lone exception, Kevin Love.

His voice in the locker room has been even more valuable since a Game 4 loss on Friday.

"Naturally when your back is up against the wall you start to look for answers, solutions," Love said. "But we're a team that as you know has been super resilient. We understand that it's every possession. It's one game. I know that's something that is cliché and everybody says but again, we feel like if we come out, have a good start (Monday), play extremely hard and give ourselves a chance and take it back to Miami, that is right where we want to be."

Although Love didn't fly with the team to Denver as he stuck around in Miami to be with his wife for the birth of their first child, he still made it to the Mile High City in time for the team's film session Sunday morning.

"Got a little bit of sleep, so today will be good to get up and down, get acclimated here and get some treatments, get some rest and be ready to roll," Love said.

With a chance to witness history — the first title in franchise history — there's little doubt the Ball Arena crowd will be rocking Monday night. But Love knows exactly what that's like.

In Game 5 against the Warriors back in 2016, after a dead even first half, the Cavaliers took a nine-point lead into the fourth quarter, turning the excited energy at Oracle Arena into nervous energy. Love is hoping to once again put doubt into the minds of the home fans.

"I think it's paramount that we come out and show what we're capable of in that first quarter," Love said. "We've been a little up-and-down to start games, maybe not on the defensive end, but offensively I think (it's about) just coming out, playing our game, getting to our spots, understanding our concepts and shooting our shots when they're there."

The Heat also have someone who's been on the other side of a 3-1 series in the Finals. Kyle Lowry was a big part of the Raptors team that won it all in 2019, beating the Warriors in six games, but not after failing to close it out in front of their home fans in Game 5.

"A close-out game is the hardest game of the series, always," Love said. "Game 5 is always, always a tough game in the series if you can push it there. We just have to come out to our game, stick to our schemes both offensively and defensively. There are some things that have been glaring for us. We'll go out there and get the job done."

Praise for Nuggets assistant coach David Adelman

Several members of the Nuggets locker room have said David Adelman deserves to be and will be a head coach in the NBA.

It just won't be in this coaching cycle.

Adelman, the top assistant under Michael Malone, had reportedly interviewed for the Raptors' coaching position before Toronto hired Grizzlies assistant Darko Rajakovic, according to reports.

After being instrumental in designing the team's offense, Denver will be happy to have him in town for a little longer.

"I think he's an offensive wizard," Michael Porter Jr. said.

Porter Jr. brought up a few examples of Adelman's influence in both games in Miami.

"We struggled with the Miami Heat's zone a couple games and he was showing us what to get into, what to do," Porter Jr. said. "Then Christian (Braun) had that big game, all off cuts and just following what (Adelman) was saying. So I think offensively there's not much better that I've seen, and that's why I think we have one of the best offenses historically. We love him over here, and if he didn't leave to go get a head coaching job, that's good for us."