![]() Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. MARTÍNEZ: Jesse Washington, senior writer for ESPN's Andscape. And the second reason is how can you not enjoy watching a bunch of overachievers who aren't really supposed to be there in the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler and his guys? You got to enjoy watching them pour their hearts and souls into this series, into these playoffs. The guy can just hoop, the Nuggets center. ![]() There's been a lot of slander about he's awkward, he's this, he's that, he's that. 1, Jokic - I mean this guy is great, and you got to appreciate his game. MARTÍNEZ: Now, I'm sure most NBA fans, Jesse, probably wanted to see the Lakers play the Celtics, but why is a Heat-Nuggets NBA Finals worth watching? The question is, do they have the firepower to compete with Denver? Like, how does he take these guys who you've never heard of, who you wouldn't recognize if you saw them in the supermarket and turn them into one of the two best teams in the NBA? He does it year after year. And I got to mention here, I think the difference in this Celtics series and the reason why they won is Erik Spoelstra. And you know, that's part of Heat culture, this famous stuff. WASHINGTON: Well, they're going to be geared up. MARTÍNEZ: Really because I was thinking about the Heat - are they going to be gassed or geared up, considering they just played this intense seven-game series? So I don't think that there's any problem with this layoff, and I think that the Heat have a huge challenge here to even win two games off the Nuggets, let alone win the championship. There are role-players that are terrific. They got the best player in the world right now - Jokic, Nikola Jokic They got Jamal Murray playing like we all knew he could play before he got injured. WASHINGTON: Rested, ready - they're ready to win that chip, man. It'll be 10 days in between games for the Nuggets. Denver swept the Lakers in the Western Conference finals. So it's going to be the Heat and the Nuggets in Denver on Thursday, Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Shown this amazing ability to have these other guys step up and contribute. Gabe Vincent, Max Strus - they got guys, I don't even know their first names - some guy named Highsmith - coming in and giving you big minutes. Duncan Robinson, former Division III player - 10 points. Caleb Martin - 26 points - should have been the MVP, not Jimmy Butler. They got a squad, and their role-players stepped up huge. But the second way, man - they got a team. So that was the first way that Miami did it. And clearly Jayson Tatum could not do what they needed him to do, what he's capable of doing. I've played in big games with a rolled ankle, and you're just not yourself. That's what you're supposed to do as a superstar, man. And, look, a lot of people are saying, oh, you got to play through it. And on the first play of the game, the Celtics' Jayson Tatum turned his ankle pretty badly and was ineffective for the rest of the game. ![]() JESSE WASHINGTON: Man, well, the first way that they did it is they got lucky. ![]() Jesse, Miami stopped the slide last night to finally eliminate the Celtics. He's a senior writer for ESPN's Andscape. Jesse Washington watched the action unfold. The Celtics were hoping to become the first team in NBA history to come back from being three games down in a best of seven, but Miami winds up playing the Denver Nuggets in the finals. The Miami Heat will advance to the NBA finals after beating the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals last night.
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