Historic night for Nuggets, rough night for Heat. Takeaways and details from Game 3 of Finals

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s 109-94 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center in Game 3 of the NBA Finals. The Western Conference’s top-seeded Nuggets regained home-court advantage and now holds a 2-1 lead over the Eastern Conference’s eighth-seeded Heat in the best-of-7 championship series, with Game 4 on Friday in Miami (8:30 p.m., ABC):

Through three games, the Heat still doesn’t have an answer for the Nuggets’ dynamic duo of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.

Jokic and Murray led the way for the Nuggets, combining for 66 points on 43 shots, 31 rebounds and 20 assists.

Jokic finished Game 3 with 32 points on 12-of-21 shooting from the field, 21 rebounds and 10 assists for his 10th triple-double of this year’s playoffs. It’s the most triple-doubles by a player during a single postseason in NBA history.

Even with the Heat using Jimmy Butler as Murray’s primary defender for the second straight game, Murray closed Wednesday’s win with 34 points on 12-of-22 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from three-point range, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for his first triple-double of this year’s playoffs.

Jokic and Murray became only the second pair of teammates in NBA history to each record a triple-double in a playoff game. It’s the first time it has ever happened in a Finals game.

“It’s a great duo,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Their games really complement each other. You have one guy that really can score in a lot of different ways. Another guy who is setting great screens or handoffs, and if the ball gets back to him, he can get a bunch of people involved.”

Denver’s two stars totaled 34 points in the first half to send the Nuggets into halftime with a 53-48 lead.

Then Jokic helped the Nuggets break the game open with a big third quarter, scoring 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the field in the period. Behind Jokic, Denver opened the second half on a 29-15 run and led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter.

Jokic and Murray then sealed the win by combining for 18 points in the fourth quarter.

Along with the excellence of Jokic and Murray, Spoelstra blamed the loss on losing “a lot of physical 50-50 or ball-in-the-air, ball-on-the-floor battles throughout the course of the game, at key moments.”

The Heat was outrebounded 58-33, but that big margin has a lot to do with the fact that Miami missed 19 more field goals than Denver to create more defensive rebounding opportunities for the Nuggets.

Meanwhile, the Heat’s leading duo Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler combined for 50 points on 45 shots, 19 rebounds and seven assists.

After shooting 53.8 percent from the field in the first two games of the series, Adebayo was far less efficient in Game 3. He finished the loss with 22 points on 7-of-21 shooting from the field and 8-of-10 shooting from the foul line, 17 rebounds and three assists.

Butler took a more aggressive approach in Game 3, finishing the loss with 28 points on 11-of-24 shooting from the field. He averaged 16.5 field-goal attempts per game in the first two games of the series.

Butler took 16 shots in Wednesday’s first half, which is the second most field-goal attempts he has finished a first half with in his NBA career.

There are many things the Heat will see on film that it can clean up for Game 4, but the bottom line is Miami still hasn’t found an answer for the incredible pick-and-roll duo of Jokic and Murray. To be fair, basically no team has found an answer this season.

Jokic has averaged 33.3 points on 59 percent shooting from the field and 44.4 percent shooting from three-point range, 14 rebounds and 9.3 assists per game in the Finals.

Murray has averaged 26 points on 50.8 percent shooting from the field and 38.1 percent shooting from beyond the arc, 6.7 rebounds and 10 assists per game in the Finals.

“You have to expect there to be elite talent in the Finals,” Spoelstra said. “Both those guys are elite-level talent.

“At our best version, we find ways to overcome that, make it tough on them and then certainly not lose the overwhelming majority of those physical battles, the 50-50 battles, the ball-in-the-air, ball-on-the-floor battles. That made it too much to overcome. The dynamic of those two, but also getting all the extra, effort points.”

Both teams struggled from three-point range, but the Nuggets won because they dominated the paint.

The Heat’s historically great three-point shooting has been the catalyst behind its historic playoff run as a No. 8 seed.

The Heat entered Wednesday’s Game 3 shooting an NBA-best 39.2 percent on 34 three-point attempts per game during this year’s playoffs.

But after shooting an ultra-efficient 17 of 35 (48.6 percent) from beyond the arc in Sunday’s Game 2 win in Denver, the Heat’s shot just 11 of 35 (31.4 percent) from three-point range in Game 3.

The Nuggets were even worse from deep, shooting 5 of 18 (27.8 percent) on threes.

The difference was the Nuggets finished with a dominant 60-34 edge in the paint in Game 3. It’s the second-most paint points the Heat has allowed in a game during this year’s playoffs.

“They just pummeled us in the paint. They didn’t really have to shoot threes,” Spoelstra said. “They had, whatever, 60 in the paint. They probably shot over 65 percent in the paint at the rim there. Wasn’t a need to space the floor. We didn’t offer much resistance.”

With Jokic and Murray relentlessly putting pressure on Miami’s defense, the Nuggets generated 27 shots at the rim. Denver shot an impressive 19 of 27 (70.4 percent) at the rim.

Jokic finished just 1 of 2 at the rim but 7 of 13 on non-rim paint shots. Murray finished 4 of 5 at the rim.

“I think one thing about coach tonight, he knew how they were going to come out aggressive, and we just didn’t match the force that we needed,” Heat guard Kyle Lowry said.

The Heat took 22 shots at the rim but had trouble finishing. Miami, which entered shooting 64.4 percent at the rim in the playoffs, shot just 8 of 22 (36.4 percent) from within the restricted area on Wednesday.

“I thought offensively, we actually did get a lot of opportunities in the paint,” Spoelstra said. “I haven’t even seen the percentage, but I would have to say our percentage in the rim or in the paint was pretty poor.”

Adebayo was just 3 of 9 at the rim and Butler was just 2 of 7 at the rim in Game 3.

“We just missed easy ones,” Lowry said. “Bam missed some shots that he usually makes and Jimmy missed some layups that he usually makes.”

Those struggles inside the paint were costly, leaving the Heat shooting just 37 percent from the field in the loss. Throw in the fact that the three-point shooting also didn’t meet Miami’s playoff standards and the Heat just couldn’t keep up with the Nuggets.

The Heat has shot 41.2 percent from three-point range in its wins and 34.8 percent from three-point range in its losses during this year’s playoffs.

Kevin Love was in the Heat’s starting lineup for the second straight game, but the results weren’t positive in Game 3.

Love hit a three-pointer just 1:11 into the game and then drew a charge on Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope 5:36 into the game to make an early impact.

But the Heat’s starting lineup with Love wasn’t as good as it was in Sunday’s Game 2 win in Denver.

The Heat’s starting lineup of Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Butler, Love and Adebayo was outscored by 10 points in 16 minutes together in Wednesday’s loss.

The unit’s worst stretch of Game 3 came at the start of the second half, when the Heat’s starters were outscored by eight points before Spoelstra made his first substitution of the third quarter.

This comes three nights after Love was re-inserted into starting lineup for Game 2 of the Finals on Sunday following three straight DNP-CDs. The Heat’s starting lineup with Love outscored the Nuggets by 20 points in 22 minutes in Game 2.

Love finished his 16th start of these playoffs with six points on 2-of-5 shooting from three-point range and two rebounds in 16 minutes.

The Heat fell to 11-3 in the playoffs when starting a game with the Vincent-Strus-Butler-Love-Adebayo lineup.

Heat guard Tyler Herro is still not ready to return.

Time is running out on Herro to come back before the end of the Finals, with a maximum of four games left in the season if the series goes a full seven games. But the Heat has yet to definitively rule our Herro for the series, instead labeling him as “day-to-day.”

“I don’t have another update for you,” Spoelstra said before Game 3. “He is scheduled to have another full-contact workout [Thursday]. He has not been cleared yet. So until he has been cleared, a lot of this stuff is really just hypothetical.”

Herro has not played since breaking his right hand in the opening game of the team’s playoff run.

Herro underwent surgery on his right hand, his shooting hand, on April 21. At that time, the Heat announced Herro would miss a minimum of six weeks. This upcoming Friday marks seven weeks since the surgery.

On Sunday, Herro told ESPN Radio sideline reporter Ros Gold-Onwude that he’s still experiencing soreness and swelling in his right hand after shooting.

Game 4 is as close to a must-win for the Heat as it can be without it actually being a win-or-go-home scenario.

After Wednesday’s loss, the Heat needs to win three of the next four games to win the championship.

Teams that have won Game 3 of an NBA Finals tied at 1-1 have gone on to win the the series 80 percent of the time (32-8) and the Nuggets now fall into that category.

The Heat will look to avoid a 3-1 hole in Game 4 on Friday at Kaseya Center before the series moves to Denver for Game 5. Teams that have taken a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals have gone on to win the series 97.2 percent of the time (35-1).

“We didn’t play our best tonight,” Butler said after Wednesday’s loss.. “I feel like we just got to come out with more energy and effort, and that’s correctable. That’s on us as a group. No X’s and O’s can fix that.”