MIAMI – The Denver Nuggets entered the NBA Finals with supreme confidence.

It was hard for the No. 1 seed, with the best offense in the playoffs, to feel any other way. Although NBA teams simply refuse to acknowledge win probability or betting odds, the Nuggets had a vastly superior résumé and had ample time off to clear their minds and remove all soreness.

Head coach Michael Malone made it clear when the series started: After sweeping the Lakers in the conference finals, the full week off was used for preparation. The East Finals going seven games did them no favors, but they undoubtedly watched more tape on the Miami Heat during that down period. After all, Miami led its series 3-0 at the time of Denver advancing.

Despite the Nuggets primarily operating with an offensive engine and being passable on defense in the Nikola Jokić era, Malone has defensive roots. It’s the side of the ball he’s more passionate about. When things go awry and he calls out his team, nine times out of 10, you can bet on defense being the trigger of frustration.

Game 1 was fairly solid for Denver in terms of keeping Miami in check. While they did allow 16 wide-open 3-point attempts and were lucky the Heat didn’t capitalize, the Nuggets largely funneled Miami to the preferred shots — they kept Jimmy Butler at bay and allowed Bam Adebayo to take a career-high 25 shots. For them, that formula is a win.

But Game 2 took a completely different route. Despite leading by 15 in the second quarter and carrying an eight-point advantage into the final period, Denver failed to capitalize. By allowing 36 points on 19 real possessions in the fourth quarter (not counting the final rebound after Murray’s missed three), the Nuggets’ defense failed them down the stretch. It resulted in another wild game flow, which seems to follow a theme we’ve seen all postseason. The modern NBA is a game of runs:

The Heat’s Game 2 victory was a carbon copy of their Game 2 road win over the Celtics just two weeks ago. They trailed by eight heading into the final period, only to stun the road team with 36 points in 12 minutes and walk away with momentum.

Denver might be in its first NBA Finals, but that’s no excuse for how poorly they played defensively. They got too comfortable with a lead. It led to blowing switches against Miami’s off-ball screening actions, overhelping off quality shooters, and not being as dialed in as they were in the last three rounds.

Malone walked into his film session with the team on Tuesday morning locked and loaded. He reviewed the tape during their travel day and prepared 17 video examples to show his players. Considering the Nuggets have scored at an efficient rate in this series, now at 117.8 points per 100 possessions, there was no question this teaching moment would center on defense.

“Every clip was a discipline clip,” Malone said. “Where our discipline — whether it was game plan, whether it was personnel, defending without fouling, whatever it may be — 17 clips added up to over 40 points in Game 2. That, to me, is staggering.”

It wasn’t a lecture. Perhaps in the past, Malone would opt for that style of coaching. If it was deeper in a playoff series with the same mistakes resurfacing, it would be the appropriate route.

Instead, he opened the room for his players to dissect exactly how they got dissected.

“We had a really good film session,” Malone said. “I gave an opportunity for everybody on our team to speak and talk about what they saw on the film. It was a very honest conversation. Guys owned what they needed to own. We have to learn from Game 2 to use it to our advantage.”

It was another interesting tactic that illustrates Malone’s coaching style, which the locker room has embraced and appreciated all year. With 23 years of experience in the NBA as either an assistant or head coach — and growing up with a father who coached in the league for 30 years — Malone has picked the brain of many leaders.

It helps that he’s been around brilliant and selfless basketball personalities, such as LeBron James (2005-10), Chris Paul (2010-11), Stephen Curry (2011-13), and now Nikoka Jokić.

He knows a thing or two about accountability and the importance for everyone in the locker room to feel involved. When Denver is rolling, he’s praising each individual. When he needs more in certain areas, he’s challenging everyone. The stars aren’t let off the hook.

But he also doesn’t single out any of his guys to the media.

“It's not just one player right now,” he said about the defensive shortcomings. “Whether it's Michael [Porter Jr.], Jamal [Murray], Aaron [Gordon], KCP, Nikola [Jokić], or whoever. We have to be a lot more disciplined, a lot more urgent.”

Without revealing his gameplan against the Heat, Malone mentioned a lot of their issues come down to just realizing who they’re guarding on certain possessions. By that, he means how much space is appropriate to give the Heat’s shooters, when to fill the gaps and help on Butler’s drives, and most importantly, knowing when to execute a switch.

“Most of that stems from communication,” he expressed. “A saying I learned a long time ago, ‘communication is concentration’. For me to communicate, I have to know what the hell to say. If I'm not concentrating and I'm not focusing, I don't know what to say. We had way too many examples, for an NBA Finals game, where we had guys not on the same page because of a lack of communication.”

Rookie Christian Braun, who was one of the culprits of a botched switched late in the game, acknowledged the Heat didn’t run anything too complex or different from Game 1. Their execution just has to be better moving forward.

“They did a lot of the same stuff, but we just messed up on our end,” he said. “I think that's the best part about it — there's a lot of controllable things and a lot of things that we can fix. If it was something that they did that we just couldn't handle it would be a different story, but we lost by three in a game where we made a lot of mistakes on our end, so it’s definitely controllable, and we'll bounce back in Game 3.”

Braun isn’t wrong when he puts the situation into perspective. It took a dynamite quarter for the Nuggets to lose a game by one possession. Chances are, they will clean up those mistakes and play more focused moving forward. Maybe they needed a wake up call after getting too relaxed.

Still, this is what the Heat do. You give them an inch at the wrong time, and they will take a mile.

Coaches rarely subscribe to the notion any game is won or lost in a single quarter. Most of them would argue the first 12 minutes are equally as important as the final 12 minutes — and they’d be correct. Setting a tone matters.

But against this version of the Miami Heat, the team constantly rising from the dead like a pack of zombies and stealing wins, it requires immense focus to survive. Miami doesn’t leave you any room for the ‘my bad’ moments. Through their poise and execution, they ensure the fourth quarter is flowing on their terms. Even on the road.

With the Heat’s off-ball movement and screening, they continue to catch opponents by surprise down the stretch games. Nothing agitates Malone more than defensive breakdowns, or a lack of interest and effort on that end of the floor. The Finals are often won or lost on the margins, with a handful of mistakes coming back to haunt the team who falls short.

“If you really want to simplify the first two games,” Malone expressed, “in the first three quarters we have dominated both games. The Miami Heat are dominating the fourth quarter. They're averaging 33 points a game in the fourth quarter, shooting over 60 percent from the field in and over 50 percent from three.”

If a coach is reciting the exact numbers from their opponent’s fourth quarter barrage, they are clearly sick of what’s happening.

Contextualizing the raw scoring output, it’s been a complete nightmare for Denver. In 24 fourth quarter minutes, this is the damage Miami’s offense has done:

Because basketball is also a game of geometry and floor balance, the Nuggets are finding it tougher to score in fourth quarters when they don’t play well defensively. Denver’s offense is getting disrupted late in games, unable to create those transition opportunities they have feasted on. As Malone was quick to point out, those chances are impossible to create if you’re inbounding the ball from 94 feet on nearly every trip. It starts with getting stops.

“I think quarters 1 through 3 after two games, we had around 19 percent of our possessions were at the end of the shot clock, last seven seconds,” Malone said. “In the fourth quarter of Game 1 and 2, that jumps from 19 percent to 32 percent. Which means, we're taking the ball out of the net, we're walking it up, we're playing against the zone and we're getting caught playing in really late-clock situations. It’s hurting our offense.”

The Heat’s unique zone and 2-2-1 press are causing Denver to play a grind-it-out pace, preventing them from getting into a flow. Instead of going through two or three different actions in a given possession to look for scoring options, the Nuggets are being limited to one action because of Miami’s ball pressure and how effectively the Heat fill the gaps to take away space.

If Miami slows you down and it becomes a halfcourt battle in the fourth quarter, it doesn’t matter if they are the eight seed — they have the expertise and coaching to win any matchup. Their main focus is taking care of the ball and keeping the Nuggets away from those easy scoring chances, as Denver is scoring 157.1 points per 100 transition possessions:

When they do get bogged down in the halfcourt, how does Malone plan to combat the Heat’s zone and create better looks for their offense?

“Making sure we have the right lineups in,” he said. “And offensively, just kind of giving our guys as many ways that they can attack that zone as possible where we can be effective and at least produce the right shot. Whether we make it or not, that's going to be on our players. But trying to make sure we're producing the right shots against that zone, which has given us some trouble in the fourth quarter.”

Having surrendered homecourt advantage, these next three days are pivotal for the Nuggets. To win a championship, you have to respond after taking a punch. This is the first series Denver hasn’t led 2-0 during this playoff run.

So it’s time to see what they are made of.

“What I know about our group is, for years now we've handled adversity very well,” Malone said. “I have no doubt that [Game 3] will be a much more disciplined, urgent team for 48 minutes.”