Miami Heat: The Defensive Effort Was Inexcusable In Loss To Nuggets

Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) steals a pass intended for Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) as center Bam Adebayo (13) defends(Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports)
Miami Heat forward Jimmy Butler (22) steals a pass intended for Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) as center Bam Adebayo (13) defends(Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports) /
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Aaron Gordon #50 of the Denver Nuggets dunks against Tyler Herro #14 of the Miami Heat (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images) /

Miami Heat: The Defensive Effort Was Inexcusable In Loss To Nuggets

Tying into Saturday’s game versus Utah, the Heat have stubbornly relied on a switching style of defense.

It’s been a success due to having talented defenders who can disrupt passes, force double-teams, and ignite transition plays off of steals and long rebounds.

However, we’ve seen more of the negative effects in their last two games.

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The Jazz had erased a 19 point Heat lead with five minutes remaining, which featured a personal 8-0 run from Donovan Mitchell and a wide open left corner three from Mike Conley to cut the deficit to two.

Thankfully, the Heat were able to hold off the Jazz by three, but only before the Nuggets could exploit those errors even further on Monday.

Denver ran the Heat’s top defenders into complete exhaustion and one reason for all of this is because the Miami Heat allow an overwhelming amount of wide open threes.