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MIAMI -- One team got a little life.
The other got a larger lesson.
This was the fallout of Denver’s 116-113 important victory against the Heat, a victory that extended the Nuggets’ chase for the West’s final postseason berth while seriously jeopardizing Miami’s chances in the East.
Start with the Nuggets.
Prior to Sunday’s game, Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler was asked about the mood of the team, which sat 2.5 games behind Portland for the West’s eighth spot with seven games to play.
“We’re still fighting for it,” Chandler said. “I don’t know the mood of the coaches. Yeah. Always a chance.”
Chandler described the season as “inconsistent. We’ve had good stretches, we’ve had bad stretches,” and, when asked to identify the team’s identity, came up empty.
The shortcomings?
“A lot of things defensively,” Chandler said. “And consistency with our rotations and stuff like that.”
Then, coming off the bench as Denver started its 30th lineup of the season -- one featuring rookie Jamal Murray at point guard for Jameer Nelson (calf) -- Chandler scored 19 in support of Danilo Gallinari (29) and Nikola Jokic (19). The Nuggets played to their strengths on offense, with crisp passing (25 assists to nine turnovers) and constant cutting.
“It feels good after three (straight) losses to pull a game out,” Nuggets coach Mike Malone said. “That was a playoff game for us. A game we had to have. A game they had to have.”
The Nuggets have two games remaining with the Pelicans and Thunder, and single games against the Mavericks and Rockets. Portland has two left with the Jazz and Timberwolves, and single games with the Spurs and Pelicans -- and the Blazers won’t have former Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic, out with a leg fracture.
“We’re still alive, man,” said Malone, who praised Chandler, Gallinari and Emmanuel Mudiay, among others, for their play Sunday. “Let’s keep on pushing to New Orleans, to see what we can do.”
The Heat, meanwhile, have been pushing a boulder uphill for three months, ever since starting 11-30, and they’re having trouble finding their footing. The Heat are now 3-5 without Dion Waiters, have fallen behind the seventh-seeded Bulls (who have the tiebreaker and the much softer schedule), are tied with the Pacers for the No. 8 seed and are just a game ahead of the hot Hornets before the teams meet Wednesday.
“Spo tells that getting in the playoffs is the hardest thing we’ll ever do,” Josh Richardson said of his coach, Erik Spoelstra.
“I mean, this is like our playoffs right now,” Spoelstra said. “It’s been like that for a while.”
And the lesson they’re learning is they can’t be lax defensively, which they were early in Friday’s loss to the woeful Knicks and again on Sunday.
“We weren’t able to grab hold of the game and be able to impose our identity,” Spoelstra said.
So, soon enough, a playoff seed may elude their grasp as well. It doesn’t appear that Waiters, while out of his walking boot, will be back in the next week, and Hassan Whiteside acknowledged that Miami misses him, while rebuking Sunday’s late game play.
“They’re last in the NBA on defense,” Whiteside said. “We should have worked their defense. (Instead), guys are trying to go 1-on-3. We should have kept doing what we were doing and worked our offense. ... The last six minutes, when Coach made the sub, we just didn’t run our offense well.”
Spoelstra actually subbed in Tyler Johnson and James Johnson with four minutes left. Tyler Johnson did sink a long 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 114-113, saving one of several ragged possessions. After that, Jokic had to call two timeouts before finally inbounding the ball on the third try. Murray then made two free throws and Richardson missed a deep, rushed 3-pointer at the buzzer.
“Oh man, he walked,” Whiteside said of Jokic. “I don’t want to speak on it too much because the NBA likes to take our money.”
As Whiteside was venting, the Cavaliers were finally taking a double overtime game from Indiana, keeping Miami in a tie for the eighth spot. For now.
“I watch it sometimes,” Whiteside said of the league scoreboard. “But if we don’t get some wins, it won’t matter.”
“We’re still in it,” Goran Dragic said. “It’s not over.”
Sunday night, the Nuggets -- mood improved -- earned the right to keep saying the same.