DENVER (AFP) – Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone knows the mind can play tricks on players when it comes to crunch time in the NBA Finals, so he’s trying out some mental games himself.
His team needs one more win against the Miami Heat to secure their first NBA championship title, after Friday’s victory in South Florida gave them a 3-1 lead in the series.
Back on home court, the odds favour the Nuggets who in the last two games have had the measure of Miami in every department of the game.
The home crowd will turn up expecting a celebration and the pundits will talk of Denver needing to simply wrap-up the series but Malone knows that kind of mood spells danger.
“My biggest concern going into any close-out game is human nature and fighting against that,” he told reporters.
“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,’” he said.
“The neat thing for us is that going back to the (COVID) bubble, we’ve been down 3-1.
We’ve come back and won. We know anything is possible,” he said.
Three years ago the Nuggets pulled off the relatively rare series comeback twice in the same post-season.
They overturned the Utah Jazz’s 3-1 lead in the Western Conference first round and then did the same against the Los Angeles Clippers in the semi-finals.
So Malone has told his team to put themselves in Miami’s shoes and play like a team who have to win to survive in the series.
“That’s why my message to our team (on Sunday) 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,” he said.
“There is no celebrating after game four. We have another game that we have to win, and the close-out game is always the hardest game ever,” he said.