Nuggets vs. Heat: Live updates and highlights from Game 2 of the NBA Finals

The Nuggets are up 1-0 against Miami after their Thursday night win in their NBA Finals debut. Stick here for live updates and analysis as Denver takes on the Heat in Game 2 at Ball Arena in Denver.

Live updates

Pre-game updates

Three keys and a legend in the making (4 p.m.): Game 2 tips off at 6 p.m. at Ball Arena. If the Nuggets win, they’ll be a perfect 10-0 at home. Read Bennett Durando’s analysis on the three keys Denver needs to do to make that happen.

And is Nikola Jokic better than Celtics legend Larry Bird? Denver Post writers Mike Singer, Bennett Durando and Mark Kiszla discuss. — Joe Nguyen

Nuggets-Heat Game 2: Must reads

Analysis: Do Nuggets have habits to improve vs. Miami Heat’s zone defense in NBA Finals Game 2?

If there’s a path to the championship for Miami after Denver’s convincing Game 1 win in the NBA Finals, it will involve smacking the immaculately synchronized Nuggets out of their rhythm.

Zone defense briefly did the trick in the series-opener.

The underdogs from South Beach narrowed a 24-point deficit to nine late in the fourth quarter Thursday night. That comeback amounted to nothing, but it did offer a glimpse of the version of the Heat that hasn’t folded during this playoff gauntlet.

The Nuggets missed 10 of their first 13 shots in the fourth quarter as Miami went back to a zone defense, which Eric Spoelstra had also deployed earlier in the game. The acclaimed coach relishes the opportunity to mix up defensive looks, Bennett Durando reports. Read the full story.

Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray the new Tim Duncan and Tony Parker? Heat’s Kyle Lowry thinks so.

Nikola Jokic has gotten the Tim Duncan comparison before. A reserved, no-nonsense leader more concerned with winning than anything else, Jokic even admitted he’d modeled his game after the legendary Spurs power forward.

Between their shared pace and elite intuition, Jokic is a worthy Duncan disciple.

But veteran Heat point guard Kyle Lowry was asked about Denver’s lethal pairing of Jokic and Murray, and whether he’d ever played a combo as connected as those two.

“I’m pretty old in this game right now,” Lowry said. “I played Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. Honestly, that’s a great combination that I got the opportunity to play against. Jamal and Jokic, they’re deadly because they both can score, pass the ball. They’re big targets, and they have a great feel for each other.” Read the full story.

Kiszla: Why are Nuggets in control of NBA Finals? In superstar-driven league, Nikola Jokic versus Jimmy Butler is a mismatch.

In the NBA Finals, Jimmy Butler is wrestling with a basketball god, and that’s a tussle Nikola Jokic is destined to win. The Nuggets, however, have the shorter path and more routes to get to four victories, because Jokic is a sorcerer who sees a game beyond a muggle’s imagination. And the Heat, as even coach Erik Spoelstra admits, has no solid answers for Joker’s genius.

Butler is no slouch. He has carried Miami, the eighth seed from the East, to the NBA Finals. By any measure, including the voting results from the All-NBA teams, Jimmy Buckets was among the top 10 players in the league this season

Jokic, however, is transforming the way basketball is played before our eyes, in a manner Magic Johnson and only a handful of others have done before him. This championship series is his coming-out party, where Joker can lead the Nuggets to the first championship in franchise history and stake a claim to being among the top 20 players of all time, Mark Kiszla writes. Read the full column.

Keeler: How did Nuggets’ Michael Porter Jr. find peace? By giving children hope. “This guy’s a class act. The real deal.”

When you ring up John Wampler about the size 14 shoe on his bookshelf, he wants to talk about MPJ’s size 30 heart.

“First of all, this guy’s a class act. The real deal,” Wampler said from Columbia, Mo., not far from the University of Missouri campus where Porter grew up. “I was just in awe as to how much he was the real deal.” Read the full column.

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