NBA Finals: Heat vs. Nuggets Game 1 Preview, Odds, Lines, Prediction, Picks

The Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat meet in Game 1 of the 2023 NBA Finals this Thursday at the Ball Arena in Colorado. These two teams won their respective conferences, beating all the top rivals in it, and now face one last obstacle before lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The Nuggets have the best player in the league, Nikola Jokic, who will go after glory and win the first NBA title for the franchise from Mile High. On the other side is the Miami Heat, led by Jimmy Butler. Erik Spoelstra made a perfectly balanced unit where each player has his precise role and waits to jump out and explode.

• Heat Odds +270
• Nuggets Odds -355
• Spread Nuggets -8
• Over/Under 213

Preview

Miami Heat (+270) has become the first team to reach the NBA Finals from the play-in tournament. By the way, they went on to lose the first meeting of the tournament, and only after beating the Chicago Bulls clinched the 8th seed in the East. Before the Finals, they played seven games against the Boston Celtics.

Jimmy Butler is the top scorer of the unit – 28.5 points, but six more Heat players (excluding Oladipo and Herro) have nine or more points per game, and each one is able to drop 20+ buckets at any given moment, which we already saw in the previous events. 

The team is extremely adaptable and fluid. Miami’s biggest plus throughout the playoffs is the fact that it can play both very efficient and inefficient games without any problems. 

Denver Nuggets (-355) swept the LA Lakers in the West Finals, showing a highly dominant performance over AD and LeBron, thus indicating their ambitions to win the first title ever. We’ve seen them eliminating the Timberwolves, the Suns, and the Lakers in the battle for the West, which is a very respectable streak of rivals.

Nikola Jokic is the centerpiece of the puzzle, with the two-time NBA MVP (who undeservingly didn’t get the honors this year as well) recording a triple-double average in 15 playoff events 29.9 points, 13.3 boards and 10.3 assists. 

Jamal Murray is just behind him with 27.7 points and some superb performances, while Michael Porter Jr. does all the dirty work under the rim on both ends. The Nuggets like to play high-scoring games, and they are very strong in setting the pace, which is usually fast.

Head to Head Games

The Nuggets and Heat had an interesting chapter last year once Nikola Jokic and Markieff Morris had an incident that turned out to be a big deal in the NBA at the time. 

As for this year’s events, the Nuggets won both events, though very narrowly, 124-119 at home and 112-108 on the road in Florida.

Prediction

Right now, the spread on the Nuggets is between 8 and 8.5 points, depending on the bookmaker. We aren’t that sure that the Nuggets are going to cover that, even though Heat will probably come into this finals very tired. On the other side, we don’t see the hosts losing and missing this chance to open the NBA Finals with a big win at home. The Nuggets are very confident at their Ball Arena and are one of the fiercest hosts in the NBA.

Pick: Denver Nuggets -355