NBA FINALS: HEAT VS. NUGGETS

June 3, 2023

Michael Malone

Denver Nuggets

Practice Day

Q. Coach, your team showed such superiority physically in conditioning. Can you talk about Felipe Eichenberger's role on the team, please?

MICHAEL MALONE: Yeah, I think he won Strength Coach of the Year a season ago. So he's well regarded, not only by people in this building but throughout the NBA.

Ever since he took over as the head strength coach for our team, he's been phenomenal in terms of not just Nikola, but all of our players, getting them in shape, getting them stronger.

He's constantly aware from the nutritional standpoint just all the way across the board. Felipe has been a huge asset not just to myself, but the entire group.

Q. What are the keys for your team to survive if not thrive when Nikola sits down? And in navigating those minutes, has that been a process over the season or several seasons, and which players are particularly important when he's out of the game?

MICHAEL MALONE: I think throughout these 16 playoff games so far our bench has been great. Regular season, some of those non-Nikola minutes were somewhat of a crapshoot. You didn't know what you were going to get.

But I think a big reason for us playing at the level that we've played at was that when Nikola has gone out, the other guys have stepped up and played well. Right now, we have a three-man bench group, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green, Christian Braun. I think those guys are playing well. If Nikola is out, Jamal and Michael or both of them are on the floor so we have two of our top three scorers on the court at all times.

But the key for that group is to defend. If you can get stops, you can get out and run. That's when that group is at its best, because you don't have the luxury of coming down and playing through Nikola in the post or wherever it may be.

So defend, rebound, run, and then other guys just playing their game and playing the games to the best of their ability.

Q. Do you try to coincide that with whether you're ahead, whether you're behind, what the score is, or is it simply he needs different periods of the game to be on the side?

MICHAEL MALONE: Well, he can't play 48. I mean, I've got to get Nikola out. So he's been running the first and third quarter, and he sits to start the second and fourth.

Q. How would you assess Nikola's defense throughout this entire playoff run, defending the rim, pick-and-roll coverages, and how important is it against the Miami Heat in this series?

MICHAEL MALONE: I think overall, I think Nikola's defense has been a real positive. I think you have to get past the eye test with Nikola because I think most people just think of great defensive players as a guy who is blocking a shot or just making a great athletic play.

Nikola does it differently. He has a tremendous IQ. He's got great anticipation. He's got unbelievable hands for deflections, blocks. He's got unbelievable feet for deflections.

To your point, Miami, they're going to run a lot of pick-and-rolls. I think they lead the Playoffs in double drags set per game, as well as just over 50 direct screen-and-rolls per game, with Jimmy handling the majority of those.

So through 16 games now people put Nikola in just a crazy amount of pick-and-rolls, and we, I think, do a pretty good job of mixing up our coverages, mixing up our levels. Sometimes he's up, sometimes he's down, sometimes we switch.

We got into in the Lakers series Nikola switching on to LeBron at times. When you first hear that, it doesn't -- there is no way you are going to switch Nikola on to LeBron. But he actually did a pretty good job at times.

So I think his defense is underrated and I think his maturation in the eight years, I think that's been a big part of it, as well. Him understanding that I have to be the best defensive player I can be to help this team become the best team that they can be. He doesn't shy away from that responsibility.

Q. In every Game 1 in these Playoffs, you guys have had a lead of 20 or 30 something in every game. Then the conversation pivots to adjustments, and Game 2 you've done pretty well in those, too. What is the trick for you as far as to not kind of go crazy about thinking what the other side is doing with these adjustments and just sort of worrying about what you guys are doing?

MICHAEL MALONE: Yeah, I don't think we played well in Game 1. I watched that tape, and they were 5 of 16 on wide-open threes. As I told our players this morning, the fact that they got 16 wide-open threes is problematic, and if you think that Max Strus is going to go 0 for 9 again or Duncan Robinson is going to go 1 for 5 again, you're wrong.

The fourth quarter, we gave up 30 points, 60 percent from the field, 50 from three, 6 of 12 from the three-point line.

I told our players today, don't read the paper, don't listen to the folks on the radio and TV saying that this series is over and that we've done something, because we haven't done a damn thing.

We won Game 1. The reason I told our players I was excited this morning is because we won Game 1 and we didn't play well, and there's so many things we can do better. If we do those things at a better level, we'll have a chance to win Game 2 tomorrow night.

I thought our pick-and-roll defense was poor. I thought our shrink the floor was poor. I felt they got 11 offensive rebounds. Bam had four; Jimmy had three.

So there's so many areas we can clean up. I'm not worried about what they're going to do. I'm worried about the things that we have to do better to try to win Game 2.

Q. You guys always talk about positional size. In terms of themes going into this series, was that a place that you wanted to exploit? Did you make a concerted effort to take advantage of your size up and down that starting unit?

MICHAEL MALONE: I think it's just playing to your strengths and feeling how the game goes. You never know how a team is going to guard you. Early in that game, they were switching some things that allowed Aaron to sit down in that paint and post up a smaller player. I think he had 14 of his 16 points in that first half and got us off to a great start.

That's something that organizationally, that's something, conversations with Calvin Booth when I took over last summer, that was their priority. When you looked at last year's NBA Finals, not many small players out there because people are going to find you. We wanted to have positional size, strength, versatility. I think Calvin has done a hell of a job kind of putting this group together.

Q. Michael, when it came to your three-point shooting, did you like the shots you got and you'll take that into the next game? And knowing Spo like you do, what do you expect from him tomorrow night?

MICHAEL MALONE: Yeah, I thought we got some pretty good looks. The reason their zone was effective in that fourth quarter was because we didn't get any stops. They shot 60 percent, which allowed them to set up in their zone every possession, it seemed.

But you look at the first two shots we got against their zone, Nikola was in the middle of the paint -- great look. Jamal gets one middle of the paint -- great look. We miss those. Michael Porter gets a corner three -- great look. Doesn't go in.

So I talked about them being 5 of 16 on wide-open threes. I think maybe we were 1 for 6 on wide-open threes. But with how heavy they are in terms of guarding the paint, we also have to generate more threes and more quality threes, and I think those will be there.

Regarding their adjustments, knowing Spo the way I do, it's not about adjustments. It's about energy and effort. I know I learned a long time ago when I first got in the league, before you make an adjustment, you have to ask yourself two questions: Are we executing the game plan correctly, and are we doing it with energy and force?

Everybody is like, we've got to adjust. Well, you never game the game plan a chance to work in the first place. So, for me, it's not going to be adjustments. It's going to be I expect the Miami Heat to come out with a much greater energy and force and attack mindset tomorrow evening.

Q. Obviously early in the game everybody knows Nikola was doing a lot of distributing, especially to Jamal late in the game to stave off that fourth quarter run. Jamal hit Nikola a couple times for buckets in the paint. When you talk about all the different ways that particular two-man can go and all the different ways you can adjust it, how important is that when you get in a Finals series and you're going up against different defenses possession by possession to be able to react in the moment with that?

MICHAEL MALONE: I think those two especially have just a tremendous amount of experience in doing so. They've played together for seven years now, and we've been in a lot of big games. Obviously never in the Finals before. But Jamal and Nikola to me has been a potent two-man game for many, many years now. They know how to communicate with each other without even speaking, just reading and playing off of each other and making the right reads.

I think the key to that two-man game is making sure the other three players are spaced correctly so they can operate in space, and no matter how you guard that, there's a counter to it. You're talking about two really skilled, talented and unselfish players who are willing to make the right play every time.

Q. You were talking a little bit ago about all the ways you didn't play well. Bam Adebayo took 25 shots and seemed like he was open quite a bit; 13 went in. How much of that was the game plan, giving him room to shoot after the tough Conference Finals he had?

MICHAEL MALONE: Well, we didn't go in saying we're going to make Bam Adebayo beat us. We came in with full respect for Bam Adebayo.

But if you're going to score 26 points on 25 shots, that's something we're willing to live with.

But we can do a better job. That's something that we talked about today, giving him different looks, making sure we're contesting, making sure we're shrinking the floor, whatever it may be.

But he's a very effective player. He can playmake. He can rebound and push. He scores in the pocket. Offensive rebounds. Whatever it is, Bam can control the game in a lot of different ways. That's the reason he's an All-Star. We just have to make sure that we are working and contesting and making him feel us as best as possible.