NBA FINALS: HEAT VS. NUGGETS

June 11, 2023

Michael Malone

Denver Nuggets

Practice Day

Q. Jamal does a lot of the visualization, buys into martial arts stuff. How much of that visualization do you think has helped him kind of become a pro, really see the floor, really kind of help him in his career?

MICHAEL MALONE: Well, first off, it's real. That's been part of his upbringing through his father, Roger. Martial arts, the meditation, the visualization. That's allowed Jamal to get to this stage and perform at the level he's performing at. It's allowed him to recover from an injury that had him miss the last two postseasons.

The most important aspect of all of that for me is it's genuine, it's real. Jamal believes in it and he practices it. That allows him to go out and use it to help his game, help his body and help his mind. Whatever is going to put him in the right frame of mind, I'm all for because we all see what he's doing out there on the biggest stage of the world.

Q. Jamal made NBA history, first player in his first four NBA Finals games to have ten-plus assists. Did you see this level of playmaking coming and what do you attribute -- we associate Jamal as a scorer and yet he has that capability, as well.

MICHAEL MALONE: Well, I've long said that Jamal is not just a scorer. That's been my challenge to him. That should be an affront to him, that people just look at him as a scorer, because ever since he became a starting point guard, he is charged with the responsibility of running this team, making every one of his teammates better, on top of being an aggressive scorer looking for his shot, on top of being a rebounder at his size and physicality, as well as being an engaged defender.

The challenge is always for you to be an All-Star and All-NBA player, and for you to be the guy that is, along with Nikola, putting this team on your back, it requires commitment and effort all across the board.

I know that he's capable of making his teammates better. He's shown that in the past. I think it's just constantly striving to become the best version of yourself. Jamal is really committed to trying to be the best version. That's allowing him to be a historical player and allowing him to have that in his first four Finals games, whatever it is, is just incredible.

Q. We did a video like five years ago talking about the similarities between the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors in terms of how you build the team. Picking players from the draft, like Jamal, Steph Curry, both selected 7th pick, very special players. And then Jokic, Michael Porter, Draymond Green and Klay with the Warriors. You were an assistant coach with the Warriors just before they started to do really, really well --

MICHAEL MALONE: Took off when I left. Thanks for reminding me (laughter).

Q. Did that time at the Warriors help you to build what you have here, and have you talked with Steve Kerr about the similarities?

MICHAEL MALONE: I have not spoken to Steve about those similarities. Obviously, when I was there, I worked for Mark Jackson and worked for, obviously, Bob Myers, was with Larry Riley at that time. But I think that's one of the real cool things about how we have gotten here. Everybody, every individual, more importantly, every team collectively has to pick a path and stay true to it. I feel really fortunate that our journey has been one of patience, one of drafting really well and developing those players, and then adding the right pieces around them.

To your point, you add an Aaron Gordon, a KCP, a Bruce Brown, whatever it may be. Everybody does it differently. Some teams want to mortgage their future and go get the surefire player, the All-Star. For us, there's never been a rushed mentality. That starts with the ownership. The Kroenke family has been phenomenal since day one allowing this thing to play itself out and not overreacting to other bumps in the road.

I think there are other teams in this league that are looking at how we have done it, smaller-market teams, how we've done it. I think more teams will try to kind of make this a blueprint.

You know, it's not for everybody. This was the best course for us, and it's allowed us to get here. But once again, we still have a lot of things that we need to accomplish in order for us to become world champions. We know tomorrow night is going to be a hell of a challenge.

Q. Kind of a coaching clinic question, but there's a school of thought in Finland that believes that successful defense is built around trust and courage. To be courageous, you have to have trust in your teammates that they will have your back, and to build trust, you have to have commitment defensively. When you started building this team's defensive identity early in the season, which did you do first, or do you believe in this type of thought?

MICHAEL MALONE: I do. But the one word that I think isn't in your Finnish identity maybe that we really, really put a huge level of importance on is communication. If you just look at our series, we lost Game 2 at home and we gave up 17 threes that night. I felt our level of communication was not anywhere where it needed to be. You think about Game 1, they made 13. I think Game 3 they made 11 and Game 4 they made eight threes.

Yes, you have to trust. That's a big part of our culture. Being courageous is always something that's going to put yourself in a position to be aggressive. You have to have an aggressive mindset to be an effective defensive team.

But if you don't have communication and discipline to go along with that, I think you're going to be missing some really key components. That's allowed us -- I mean, I think in the three wins that we've had against Miami, they are averaging 94 points, and their field goal percentage and three-point percentage are really, really low.

It's going to have to be even better tomorrow evening.

Q. I know after Game 2, you were very straightforward about the effort issues and getting them in the moment. Now that we are a week later, two wins later, how do you feel about the team's response to that and what they are dealing with going into tomorrow with a chance to win it?

MICHAEL MALONE: I would say regarding the team response, I thought it was outstanding. We went down to Miami. Won two games on the road. We did it by playing this great defense. So our guys really bought in and committed to not only playing harder for longer, but also just being a lot more connected and talking our defense and being disciplined. It was two great examples in Game 3 and 4.

My biggest concern going into any close-out game is human nature and fighting against that. You're up 3-1. Most teams, when you're up 3-1, they come up for air. They relax and they just kind of take it for granted that, oh, we're going to win this.

The neat thing for us is that going back to the bubble, we've been down 3-1. We've come back and won. We know anything is possible.

That's why my message to our team before we came down to the media and open practice was our approach has to be we are down 3-1. They are desperate; we have to be more desperate. They are hungry; we have to be hungrier. There is no celebrating after Game 4. We have another game that we have to win, and the close-out game is always the hardest game ever.

So I'm looking forward to seeing our approach. We had it in Game 6 against Phoenix and Game 5 against Minnesota and Game 4 against the Lakers. My hope is tomorrow night in front of this incredible crowd and incredible environment that the players understand the opportunity in front of them and take full advantage of them.

Q. You answered a little bit of my question there just at the end. What are all the things that have happened to the Denver Nuggets over this season and maybe a couple previous seasons that you can treat this just like a regular game, even though it's not, with so much at stake?

MICHAEL MALONE: Stay in the moment and once that jump ball goes up tomorrow night, our players, every possession, every moment of that game can't be, "We have to win this game." We have to stay true to ourselves, trust what's gotten us to this point.

The message after Game 4 in Miami was, everybody is yelling, "Just one more win." Hey, let's just win the first quarter tomorrow night. Take it in small bites. Take it in small bites. And if you do that possession by possession, quarter by quarter, hopefully when 48 minutes are over, you've done what you needed to do.

But this team has been through a lot. The last two years, no Jamal Murray; last season, no Michael Porter. To get back healthy and add some key pieces, this is a team that has been tested before and I think is really built for this moment. Our guys are excited for that opportunity tomorrow.

Q. Do you feel like Nikola's selfless approach and how he really doesn't care about his stats, and I guess how calm he is in these moments all the time, do you think that's trickled down to the rest of the roster over the years?

MICHAEL MALONE: Yeah, I think eight years with Nikola, and that was -- in our culture of being a work team, a selfless team and a trust team, that was day one when I got here. And then slowly but surely, culture is not a thing that you achieve and you cross it off your list. Culture is a thing that you have to work on each and every day, or if not, that culture is going to go away.

It just so happens that the two-time MVP and a great player in Nikola kind of embodies everything. To your point, when you have a guy that has had the success that Nikola has had, being your hardest worker and being as selfless as he is and trusting as much as he does, well, that allows everybody else to kind of fall in line.

So it's a real luxury as a head coach to have a player that kind of embodies everything that we are trying to do on a daily basis.

Q. Going back to the Conference Semifinals in the middle of it, you guys were tied at two and you've lost one game since. I want you, if you would, to go back and remember what the stress level was like and the concern level at that time, and how it compares to the moment that you're in now.

MICHAEL MALONE: There was no stress level. In that series against Phoenix, we won two games at home. They won two games at home. We realized that we were playing against a team that most people had picked to come out of the Western Conference. Understandably so, with the talent level that they had. So I can't say that they were stressed coming home to Game 5. We knew we had a terrific home-court advantage and our fans would show up and we'd play a lot better.

I think now when you go back to Phoenix and Game 6 and a chance to close it out, I didn't expect to be up 30 at halftime. But it just kind of speaks to our guys understanding that in the close-out game, we did not rely upon having Game 7 in our pocket to go home and play in front of our fans. We don't rely upon having three games to close out Miami. When you start relying upon things like that, you get yourself into trouble.

So that's why I say, tomorrow's game, we're down 3-1. This is a must-win for us, and hopefully, if that's the mentality our guys can go out there and play with, we'll put ourselves in a great position.