THREE THINGS TO WATCH FOR IN GAME 3 OF THE NBA FINALS BETWEEN THE NUGGETS AND HEAT

They say a series begins when a team loses at home.

Well, if we go by that golden rule, the NBA Finals have officially started. Denver dropped Game 2 to the Maimi HEAT, 111-108, to even up the series heading into Miami for Games 3 and 4.

This was Denver's first loss at home of their entire playoff run, rattling off nine-straight victories at Ball Arena entering Sunday. Still, Denver has a winning 4-3 record on the road. The HEAT, meanwhile, are 6-2 in their home arena.

Game 2 was a disappointing showing for the Nuggets given that Nikola Jokić dropped 41 points and ripped down 11 rebounds. Much was made of Denver's offense, yet it was their defense that doomed them. The HEAT made 17 three-pointers and shot a blistering 48.9 percent from distance. 11 of those 17 made threes were quantified as "open" according to the NBA's official tracking data, as Denver goofed up numerous switches and miscommunicated repeatedly on defense.

"I showed 17 clips this morning," said head coach Michael Malone after the Game 2 loss. "Every clip was a discipline clip, if you will, where our discipline, whether it was game plan, whether it was personnel, whether it was defending without fouling, whatever it may be, 17 clips added up to over 40 points in Game 2. That, to me, is staggering."

Clearly, Denver has a lot to clean up defensively. An optimist's viewpoint would say that adjustments heading into Game 3 are fairly straightforward; just don't allow 40 points because of silly mistakes. Communicate and be on the same page schematically. Work as a team... as the Nuggets have all postseason. Denver's boasted a good playoff defense, ranked 7th according to NBA stats. Allowing 129.1 points per 100 possessions is and was an outlier performance in Game 2.

There are more takeaways to be had than just tidying up the silly screw-ups on defense, but first, a look at the injury report.

INJURY REPORT

Miami:Bam Adebayo — Available (Right Shoulder Discomfort)Tyler Herro — Out (Right Hand Surgery)Victor Oladipo — Out (Left Knee Surgery)Gabe Vincent — Available (Left Ankle Soreness)Cody Zeller — Probable (Right Foot Sprain)

Can Denver play Kevin Love off the floor?

Aaron Gordon, Denver's 6'8 and 203-pound powerhouse forward, quickly got on the board with 14 first half points in Game 1 by repeatedly brutalizing Miami's small-ball starting lineup.

So, the HEAT made a big adjustment heading into Game 2 and went bigger. Coach Erik Spoelstra swapped out 6'5 Caleb Martin for 6'8 Kevin Love at the starting power forward spot. Miami was a +18 in Love's minutes, who shored up the rebounding and provided some much-needed physicality. He kickstarted Miami's fastbreak offense numerous times with his top-notch outlet passing. Most of all, he clogged up the paint.

Love has his blemishes. He's 34 years old and has a 6'11 wingspan. In his best season (2008-09), he averaged just 0.6 blocks. That number fell to just 0.2 rejections per game this season. Even in his heyday, he was never a particularly versatile defender. Age has only sapped his ability to defend the perimeter.

And yet, Denver rarely attacked his weaknesses as a defender in Game 2.

The other Game 2 adjustment that Spoelstra made was having Jimmy Butler defend Jamal Murray instead of Gabe Vincent after Murray's explosive 26-point performance in the Finals opener. The adjustment was largely effective, and Murray finished with 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting in Game 2, pedestrian by his lofty standards.

Love was matched up with Gordon for 6:01 total minutes in the second game of the NBA Finals. Gordon's a tenacious screener, making him the ideal candidate to set picks for his guards.

On paper, it would make sense to have Gordon set pick-and-roll screens for Murray to shed him of Butler and set up the mismatch against Love. Miami's been fairly fluid about switching on-ball screens throughout their entire playoff run, particularly between positions 1-through-4, and Gordon's the type of big-bodied screener that could coerce that switch.

Yet, Denver didn't have Gordon set a single screen for Murray during Sunday's contest. Not once. Love was sitting there, ready to be served on a platter. But alas.

The Nuggets did, however, have Gordon set a ball screen for Jokić in their patented 5-4 pick-and-roll via an out-of-bounds set in the first quarter. Gordon's screen was low enough to force Miami into switching, giving Jokić the matchup with Love for the easy floater over an ineffective contest.

Denver never went to that look again in Game 2 with Gordon screening for Jokić. It was the last time the Nuggets targetted Love in the pick-and-roll altogether, foreseeably the best way to play him off the floor.

On a lesser note, another way to attack Love is for Gordon to simply barrel into him, particularly on the fastbreak. Miami's excellent at limiting transition scoring, generally speaking, but having Gordon initiate the fastbreak is a great way to force rotations after misses. Doing so got Jokić a wide-open three-pointer when Gordon was able to pull in help from Bam Adebayo after driving into the chest of Love.

Making Love unplayable is in Denver's best interests. It'll force Spoelstra to go back to Martin and the small-ball lineup, thereby allowing Denver to reap the benefits of boasting significantly larger starters. But to do so, the Nuggets need to actually make Love uncomfortable defensively.

Should Denver make a slight adjustment to its help defense?

The Nuggets have made it a priority to take away Jimmy Butler's driving lanes.

The gambit has worked, at least in terms of erasing Butler from the series. He's recorded 34 total points in the Finals and has shot just 39.4 percent from the field. Miami finished with a mere 2 total free throws in Game 1 because Denver was able to smother the painted area.

Spoelstra, one of the best coaches in the association, adjusted in Game 2. Denver helped aggressively at specific areas of the floor, particularly around the middle of the free-throw line (also known as the "nail"), to halt drives in Game 1. So, Miami spaced its shooters farther away from the rim to make closeouts more rigorous for the Nuggets.

Here's an example of what that looks like from Game 2.

Butler sized up his matchup, Gordon, at the right wing. As he prepared to drive into the middle of the floor, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope sunk down to the right elbow to take away the driving lane. Meanwhile, KCP's man, Max Strus, repositioned himself 30 feet away from the rim on the other side of the floor. When Butler made the pass to Strus, it was too much ground for Caldwell-Pope to cover to return back to his original man, who splashed home his fourth made three-pointer in the first quarter.

Here's a similar possession from the third quarter.

Once again, it was Butler sizing up Gordon at the right wing. And once again, the closest Nugget defender, Murray, sunk all the way down to the right elbow while his man, Strus, spaced 30 feet out on the opposite side. Though Murray was able to recover back, Strus attacked the closeout and got into the middle of the paint. This forced Jokić to step up away from his assignment, Adebayo, opening up the window for the bounce pass and bucket at the cup.

Gordon's been an excellent individual defender through Denver's playoff run. He held Karl-Anthony Towns and Kevin Durant to 37 and 38 percent shooting in back-to-back rounds. He's disciplined, strong, and stays down on pump-fakes, making him the ideal individual defender for Butler, who operates off craft and strength.

There was a lot of chatter about "making Jokić a scorer" by erasing his teammates after he finished with 4 assists in Game 2. Perhaps we're looking at that strategy from the wrong side of things. Hugging tight to Miami's shooters to avoid a three-point onslaught and letting Gordon defend Butler mano a mano, without the aggressive help displayed in the clips above, is worth a shot.

Make Butler a scorer... and see what happens.

Miami's lived or died by the three throughout this playoff run. So why not, you know, kill the three-ball off altogether?

Was the run made by Denver's replicable?

Denver went on a 40-14 run between the first and second quarters of Game 2. Much of that run was spearheaded by its backups—Jeff Green, Bruce Brown, and rookie Christian Braun—plus Murray and Gordon.

That unit is fairly undersized with 6'8 Gordon manning the middle, making them the perfect group to exchange matchups 1-through-5. Malone has utilized that switching strategy since the end of the regular season, and it's been largely successful.

Miami is a smaller team, as mentioned. They don't boast any big men that can back down smaller defenders and own real estate near the rim.

They're the perfect team to go small against.

That rings especially true when Butler is off the floor, who is Miami's only ball-handler that can reliably beat mismatches and force rotations with consistency.

Going small and switching everything flattened Miami's offense completely when Butler sat early in the second quarter of Game 2. It helps that Denver's backup unit boasts two of its best perimeter defenders, Braun and Brown, both of whom greatly pressure opposing perimeter players and have extremely active hands.

Braun recorded two steals almost immediately after checking in. The Nuggets finished with 18 fastbreak points in Game 2, and most of them occurred during the second quarter when their reserves ramped up the intensity on defense.

If Malone can get this type of production from his backups, it greatly heightens Denver's ceiling throughout the rest of this series. Winning the bench minutes was always going to be a major battleground in the NBA Finals.

TUNE-IN TO Game 3: Wednesday 6:30 p.m. MT, ABC and 92.5FM