How the Heat and Nuggets Turned the Conference Finals Into Routs

The most important number to know in order to understand the 2023 conference finals is zero. That is, zero teams have ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in an NBA playoff series—relevant precedent because the Celtics and Lakers both trail 3-0, following an exuberant weekend for the Heat and Nuggets.

Now, for only the second time in the 16-team playoff era, both conference finals have begun 3-0. (In 2015, the Cavaliers completed their sweep of the Hawks, while the Warriors closed out the Rockets in five games.) The Celtics and Lakers might still stave off sweeps this week, but the 2023 postseason seems all but assured of an improbable Heat vs. Nuggets, 8-seed vs. 1-seed final at this point.

The only negative—at least for Nuggets fans, Heat fans, and neutral fans basking in the schadenfreude of the Lakers’ and Celtics’ frustrating defeats—is a presumably lengthy wait before the Finals begin on June 1. But for now, we can analyze just how the two conference finals turned into routs, by looking at a half-dozen other numbers that tell the story of this playoff round: three that explain the Heat’s three wins, and three that explain the Nuggets’.

Miami Heat

47.8 percent

As I’ve written repeatedly throughout the past month, the most surprising aspect of the Heat’s run is how well they’re shooting. The team that led the NBA in 3-point percentage in 2021-22—en route to the East’s no. 1 seed—ranked just 27th in that statistic this season, and the now-injured Tyler Herro was the only Heat player who shot better than league average on 3s.

But the Heat scorched the nets against Milwaukee in their 8-over-1 upset in the first round, and they’ve caught fire once more against Boston. Miami made more than half its 3s in both Game 1 and Game 3, and is now at 47.8 percent overall in this series. No previous team in conference finals history has shot better than 45 percent from distance (minimum 50 attempts).

The Heat are also shooting well from 2-point range, and in their 128-102 blowout win in Game 3, they outperformed their expected effective field goal percentage—based on factors like shot location, defender distance, and shooter identity—by 17 percentage points. They now have four of the top six single-game overperformances this postseason, according to Second Spectrum, including two from the conference finals.

Best Shotmaking Games of 2023 Postseason

42.3

Jimmy Butler is the Heat’s hero, but he hasn’t needed to be quite as singularly transcendent against Boston as he did against Milwaukee. In Game 3, for instance, Butler scored only 16 points while…