In a high-scoring rollercoaster of a game with 22 lead changes, the Heat end up out-executing the Nuggets in crunch time, ending their four-game winning streak 124-119. Once again the Nuggets showed heart, but ultimately failed due to inexperience and mistakes.

THE RUNDOWN

First Quarter Starters: Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, JaKarr Sampson, Kenneth Faried, Nikola Jokic

Stat of the quarter: Miami – 6 total rebounds. Denver – 5 offensive rebounds.

The Heat have been playing small-ball more than ever this year in Miami and it came back to bite them as the Nuggets absolutely decimated them on the boards. This led to Denver being able to keep up with the Heat despite shooting 57.7 percent to their 66.7 percent.

Unfortunately Denver’s shooting woes continued as the Heat shot 4-7 from beyond the arc compared to the Nuggets’ 0-6, single-handedly making up the difference in score.

End of first: Heat up 36-33.

Second Quarter – Starters: D.J. Augustin, Will Barton, Axel Toupane, Darrell Arthur, Joffrey Lauvergne

Stat of the quarter: Both teams were dead even in everything except free throws. Denver shot 5-6 from the stripe compared to Miami’s 2-2.

After a dominant performance last game against the Wizards, the Nuggets bench performed pathetically against the Heat reserves. Is it purely coincidental that Jusuf Nurkic seemingly makes an otherwise subpar bench unit dominant? Luckily Augustin had a scoring surge right before the starters came in to bring what would’ve been a nine point deficit down to just two.

The starters came in and immediately continued where they left off, particularly Faried who was absolutely thrashing the Heat around. The Manimal had his hands on seemingly every loose ball and was a constant force on the boards, racking up tip-in after tip-in. Absolutely brilliant performance from Faried.

End of second: Heat up 64-62.

Third Quarter – Starters: Mudiay, Harris, Sampson, Faried, Jokic

Stat of the quarter: The Nuggets doubled Miami’s rebounds 12-6 resulting in 22 shots from the field to their 16.

The Nuggets came out of halftime with purpose, aggressively attacking the Heat defense and turning a two point deficit into a three point lead. Mudiay was the driving force behind the run as he scored a quarter-high nine points on 4-6 shooting.

Unfortunately, the Nuggets were a little lackadaisical with their defense and resorted to unnecessary reach-in fouls that resulted with the Heat being in the bonus from the 6:30 mark until the end of the third.

End of third: Nuggets up 82-68.

Fourth Quarter – Starters: Augustin, Barton, Toupane, Arthur, Lauvergne

Stat of the quarter: Heat grabbed 13 rebounds to the Nuggets’ nine in the most crucial quarter.

After having a quiet game thus far, Whiteside burst onto the scene with 12 fourth quarter points on a pristine 4-4 shooting, most of which being soul-crushing dunks in the clutch. He also grabbed four boards in the quarter without Faried keeping him in check.

Malone curiously closed the game out with Augustin instead of Faried (saying after the game he wanted to go with Jokic for experience and Arthur for spacing), opting for a more dynamic scoring threat over a force on the boards. He’s certainly earned the right to tinker with his lineup, but with the kind of game Faried was having it’s tough to justify leaving him on the bench during crunch time.

Mudiay gave fans a glimpse of his ability to take over a game as he tried his hardest to give them a glimmer of hope, nailing back-to-back threes to keep the Nuggets breathing:

Final: Heat win 124-119.

WHERE/WHEN

American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL | March 14th | Regular Season Game 67 (28-39)

STAR OF THE GAME

Faried was downright dominant tonight, making his dominance in the paint known as he inhaled nearly every loose rebound and scored a plethora of put-back baskets.

The Manimal dropped 24 points on a perfect 11-11 from the field to go along with his 11 rebounds even after playing just three minutes in the fourth quarter.

Here he is snatching down a rebound and putting it in the basket before the Heat even knew what hit them:

And here he is getting the steal on one end and finishing with the and-1 on the other:

PLAYS OF THE GAME

Mudiay with yet another half-court lob to Faried:

Mudiay with the gorgeous lob to Faried on the fastbreak:

Mudiay with a SICK bounce pass to Faried (as you can see, their chemistry is getting better and better every single game):

BY THE NUMBERS

NBA.com

Once again, shooting bites the Nuggets in the butt as they convert a mere 35 percent of their threes compared to the Heat’s 47.1 percent. In fact, the Nuggets shot the ball 93 times to Miami’s 79 and still lost. That’s pretty bad.

Not the best game for Barton as he goes scoreless on 0-6 shooting in 20 minutes. With Barton you definitely have to take the good with the bad and tonight just happened to be a night to forget for him. Meanwhile, rookie Justice Winslow scored a career high 20 points of the bench for Miami, breaking his previous mark of 15 points set back on Feb. 22nd.

WHAT’S NEXT

The Nuggets will stay in Florida, but head to Orlando to get ready to face the Orlando Magic tomorrow night. Tip off is at 5:00 p.m. MT.