6-5-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST Hour 1

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Visit Max.com. Okay, for reals, raise your hand if you really thought the Miami Heat were going to get swept. Just be honest, you really thought the Heat were going to get bounced in four consecutive games. Well, as much as I understand that it's tempting to overreact, it's tempting to go one extreme or another, especially in sports, right? We very rarely employ much logic in sports.

And then when something doesn't make sense, we wait for the other shoe to drop. A little bit like the Florida Panthers, right? The Panthers have, as an eight seed, defied the odds.

Did it against Bruins, did it all the way to the Stanley Cup final, including the East Finals with a sweep. That doesn't even make any sense. Well, here at the Miami Heat, so many people just assume their luck, quote unquote, is about to run out.

It's going to run out at any point because they shouldn't be doing this. And yet we overlook the fact that they perform better when they have no other alternative. They perform at their best with their backs against the wall. It's not just a cliche for the Heat, it is true.

And how many times have we seen it? Fourth quarter rally after fourth quarter rally. And always down from double digits, it seems like. So tonight only being down eight at the start of the fourth quarter.

Oh, well, that was riding on the wall. That wasn't even a double figure rally in the fourth quarter. I saw this stat posted by Tim Reynolds, who covers the NBA for the Associated Press. And I want to pass it along because I think it's pretty indicative of who the Heat are and how they're locked in right now. Do they win every game?

No, that would be too easy. And the Heat never take the easy road ever. But this is who they are. They adjust, they dig down deeper, they don't quit. They find a toughness that most teams can't match and they keep forcing the issue. Again, they don't always win. Sometimes they're in too big a hole and sometimes the shots don't drop. But the number of times the Heat have overcome at least a 12 point deficit this season. Get this. Again, the stat from Tim Reynolds who did the math.

I did not. In the regular season, over an 82 game span, they did it nine times. In the playoffs, seven.

Another seven times in the postseason. They're veterans. They're tenacious. They all have something to prove. Even Kyle Lowry and Kevin Love, who were essentially dumped by the teams with whom they won the championships. And then think about the number of undrafted players who are logging major minutes for the Heat. You don't think Gabe Vincent has a chip on his shoulder? You don't think Max Struse, who got cut by the Celtics, has a chip on his shoulder or Kayla Martin? Now, these guys all have something to prove and they followed Jimmy Butler's lead, for heaven's sakes, the king of chips on his shoulder.

He carries more than one chip and he's still out for the chip, actually. I'm not telling you the Heat are going to win the series because I don't know. But I am telling you this is their M.O. And to underestimate them right now, with everything on the line and only three wins remaining for a championship, that's just dumb. If we do that, we haven't been paying attention to these Miami Heat.

At this point, we should expect it. And honestly, the Nuggets look shaky to me in this game, too. Even when they had a 15-point lead, even when Nikola Jokic was going off in the third quarter, it never felt like they slammed the door. It never felt like they kept their foot on the neck of the Heat. And we've seen this with the Nuggets multiple times, even in their sweep of the Lakers. Didn't we see the Lakers twice rally? I think it was game one and game four, from double figures down to make it a little bit too close for comfort. Against the Heat, you are playing with, oh, wait for it, fire.

If you do that, they will burn you. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports. OK, there goes the perfect show.

At least I made my points about basketball, but I clearly can't get out the name of my own show. Let's try that again, and I'll explain why that happened. So when you do this job, brain and mouth are not necessarily in sync. Brain is already thinking about the next thought, while mouth is completing the previous thought.

Otherwise, you're stuck not knowing where you're going and what you're doing, right? So brain and mouth are doing two different things, but sometimes I'll think one word in my brain and the syllables will get wrapped up in my previous words that come out of my mouth. So I was going to say, hello, and I was already thinking hello or hola, one or the other. And so instead, I dropped an extra L into the name of the show. All right, let's try this again.

Stop laughing over there. Actually, producer Jay is not with us tonight. He's not feeling well.

And producer Kevin has graciously stepped away from another assignment that he had here on the network. And he has agreed to work with us tonight. So thank you. I'm already entertaining him, which I suppose is your reward for working with us.

And they're laughing up a story. Happy to be here. Oh, yes. Let's try it again. Take two. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, not Lady-O.

Although that would be kind of funny. You guys are not going to believe this, but there's another whale video circulating. I'm not kidding.

It's old, which I had to do some research just to be sure of what I was seeing. But after last week, when we broke the Internet, sending you all to look at the whale video, we wanted to know whether or not it was real. There's another whale video. And I got to tell you, I feel as though we have something to do with another whale video surfacing because we gave that whale video from last week so much traffic that I think the Twitter account decided, oh, let's troll some peeps, why don't we? Because they walked right into it.

So now I'm suspicious, yo. But we'll talk about that coming up. First, the basketball game, NBA Finals, Game 2. Heavens, we've waited since Thursday and looking for the answer from the heat. Now initially, as I say, this was a game in which the Nuggets built a buffer.

They made themselves a cushion, but I never really thought it was sufficient. And actually they were trailing at the end of the first quarter, but put together a pretty impressive run in the second to take the lead into halftime, but they had a double figure lead and it was reduced to six at halftime, if I remember correctly. And so again, I didn't love the way the Nuggets were leaving the door cracked, if you will. And it felt like just a matter of time. Caleb Martin was sick.

He did play, but he wasn't feeling well. But it felt like just a matter of time until Gabe Vincent and Max Drewes and even Duncan Robinson found their rhythm. They're all hustlers.

They all hustle. But I had said to you before, well, I said to you in the wake of game number one, before we ever started talking about game number two, I felt like the heat were tired. You could see it. They were chasing, maybe didn't have as much energy coming off of the Celtic seven game series and all of the emotional and physical energy they spent. Even though they had an extra day before the NBA final started, they did have to travel. I didn't think they looked like they had a ton of energy.

And so when you think about, I think it was one for 17, Drewes and Gabe, Drewes and Caleb Martin, maybe two of the major pieces go one for 17 in the first game of this finals. And the Nuggets just had too much. They had too much firepower.

They got contributions from everywhere. Early on when Nikola Jokic wasn't scoring, he was distributing. But in game number two, they looked a lot more energetic. And so they kept reeling the Nuggets back in, reeling the Nuggets back in to the point where in the fourth quarter they were within striking distance. And man, when the Heat strike, they strike fast and they strike ferociously.

And it's from everywhere. It's Gabe Vincent, it's Bam Adebayo, and of course it's Jimmy Butler. Gabe, three ball, left side.

Oh, he did it again. He ripped it again for the fourth time in five tries in game two. The Heat's leading scorer, Gabe Vincent, did it again.

90-85, 8.50 to go. Jimmy not in for closing time just yet. Lowry, bounce pass to Bam. Jumper from the free throw line. He got it to go. Porter wanted to get a piece of that one.

He got nothing. 16 points on the board for Bam. Doker up and in for an easy two.

He has 35. Denver's first field goal in the fourth quarter right there. Heat up 92-89, 7.08 to go. Bam straddling the top of the arc, looking to his right. Squares up.

Hand off to Duncan, sidestep. He snaps it to Jimmy in the left corner. He elevates for three. He gets nothing but net. Two for four from the land of milk and honey.

For Jimmy gets buckets. 95-91. Miami up four.

6.15 to go. Lowry with the rock with the arena logo near side. Over to his left. Bounce pass to Bam on the move. Gets it to Jimmy. Pump fake. Drives right baseline.

Elevates, puts it up and in. And the joker fouled him. And one. Jimmy going to the line where he's four for four. That man has 18 points.

Beautiful look by Bam. Heat up 97-91. Once the Miami Heat grab that momentum, once they get that clean air out in front to use a racing analogy, or once they get their head to use a horse racing analogy, they do not stop. They prefer being the chaser as opposed to being the one that's getting pursued. They don't like being front runners. That's not where they excel. I'm telling you, they perform better under pressure. And there are some personalities who are like that. But also, they hate to lose.

They just take it personally. And as you hear, everything from Gabe Vincent, who's the leading scorer, to Bam Adebayo, who has a second consecutive really strong offensive game. So athletic.

He used that to his advantage against Nikola Jokic. And then in addition, seeing what Jimmy Butler can do time and time again. In 40 minutes, he's everywhere and he's everything. Not perfect, but he sets the tone.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. So a 17-5 run to start the fourth quarter. They go from down eight, eventually go up 12 in that fourth quarter, and even though Jamal Murray is able to can a couple of threes, he really was the only guy who was on for the Nuggets other than Jokic. And Jokic carried the team as far as he could. In the third quarter, he had nearly 20 points alone in the third quarter. He finished with 41.

But the difference between game two and game one is that there wasn't enough from everyone else. Jamal finished with 18, and he had a couple of big threes late. He also had 10 assists. But for the most part, Michael Porter Jr.-- oh, he was getting embarrassed on defense in the fourth quarter. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, those two guys, I don't want to say nothing, but very little offense.

Even Aaron Gordon. Now, you're not looking to Aaron Gordon to score a ton, but it didn't come as easy for the Nuggets in the paint in game two. Miami did a much better job on defense. And part of that, I suspect, is because A, they were getting back in transition D and not allowing the Nuggets anything easy. But also, if you noticed, in that fourth quarter, really, whenever the Heat would make a run, it was because they spread out their offense. And so the Nuggets are running all around, trying to catch up with the ball, which is impossible. They're running all around. They're leaving three-point shooters wide open.

They're leaving guys uncovered. They were scrambling. Their defense had the element of scrambling in the fourth quarter, which is sometimes panicky, but also the fact that they're running out of energy because they're running around like chickens with no heads on defense. And some of that was about missed assignments.

It's a lack of communication. But it's also the Heat moving the ball as well as they did. So Jokic has 41, and Jamal finishes strong, but otherwise just not enough.

They're not going to call a time out. Denver needs a three-pointer to tie the thing up. Seven seconds left to go for Jamal Murray. Murray has the bottom part of the mid-court circle.

Step back three. Missed it short, and there's the horn. Denver loses game two of the NBA Finals tonight to the Miami Heat, 1-11 to 1-08. So you get the final call there with Jason Kosmicki on Denver Nuggets radio. Oh, yeah, there was a chance. It turned out to be not a set shot. He was kind of leaning a little bit. But yeah, Jamal Murray at least got a look with Butler on him.

I think he got off a decently good look, kind of like a high pick and roll isolation. And I just contested it. Pretty glad that he missed it to give us a 1-1 series tie going back to Miami. But why, though? Why do they keep doing this?

Why are they able to rally in the fourth quarter over and over and over again? We'll hear from Jimmy Butler about that. He keeps telling us why. And also, Michael Malone takes aim at his own team. And he is not shy about doing it. Couple of months ago, he called the Nuggets soft, sitting at a desk with a microphone in front of him. He will call out his team and does not care if it hurts their feelings. In fact, if it hurts their feelings, they better think again. There better be a gut check moment if you're that soft and it hurts your feelings or you're embarrassed. Well, you maybe should be embarrassed after coughing up a 15-point lead on your own court.

But at least you're not alone, because this is what the Heat do. You can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio. Look forward to hearing from you.

Also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Just admit it. There was a part of you that really did think they were going to get swept. Our friend Sean Grandy, who does Celtics radio, actually told us after game seven in Boston, I guess it was Memorial Day, that he was pretty sure the Heat had won their last game of the year.

Oh, OK. Anyway, so Twitter, Facebook, love to hear from you. Our phone number, 855-212-4227. Kevin needs your phone calls because, well, he's volunteered to stay with us all night long. And we'll hear from both the Heat and the Nuggets straight ahead. Also, Matt Moore from the Action Network lives in Denver, convenient. He attended the game and will join us live at the top of the hour. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. T-Mobile's network can help keep you connected to all your favorite podcasts when you're out and about. Whether you're an early bird looking to dive into a daily news podcast or a night owl who wants to catch up on the latest reality TV drama, T-Mobile will keep you connected on their strong and reliable network. T-Mobile covers more highway miles with 5G than anyone. So if you need great coverage, especially when you're on the go, check out T-Mobile.

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OK, good. Well, so can your potential customers right here on your Odyssey station. You might be used to skipping social ads, but you are still listening to me right now.

And so are your clients. To learn how to drive more business and how Odyssey can help get your message to your customers, visit stateofaudio.com. That's stateofaudio.com. Jason Jackson on heat radio. Of course, Jason Kosmicki is Denver Nuggets radio and will be mixing in those highlights.

Top of the hour, we'll hear from Matt Moore, who is there at ball arena. The Nuggets lose their first game at home this postseason. And wait until you hear what Mike Malone has to say about this loss in game number two. I fail to understand how there could be a lack of focus and a lack of discipline in the NBA finals, but we see it.

These are human beings. I remember when Miami was up 3-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals and had lost three games in a row. Well, wake up calls always.

Sometimes not a bad thing to have a little fear of losing infused into your bloodstream. It's after hours on CBS Sports Radio. There was a fourth quarter run, really beginning of the fourth quarter, and the Heat grabbed control. And in fact, they started out perfect. I think they were a perfect six for six to begin the fourth quarter before the Nuggets had even made a shot. They were six for six in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter huddle before that run.

Eric Spoelstra, what did you say? This is a really good offensive team. They force you to have to compete at a super high level, but you have to do it with the brain and you have to do it with discipline. And our guys, regardless of how the head coach feels like during the fourth quarter, our guys love to compete. They love to put themselves out there in those moments of truth. So yeah, recognizing that the Nuggets offense can hurt you a variety of ways, but his team loves to compete. They love a challenge. And we did see the Nuggets build a lead when they were pushing the tempo, when they are in attack mode.

But you know what? The Heat do that too. So Jimmy Butler, why? Why is your team so resilient?

And why are you able to keep coming back when left for dead? I just think nobody cares on our team. We're not worried about what anybody thinks. We're so focused in on what we do well and who we are as a group that at the end of the day, that's what we fall back on. Make or miss shots, we're going to be who we are because we're not worried about anybody else. That's how it's been all year long. And that's not going to change.

So that's what I think it is. I think it's the I don't give a damn factor. I don't give a damn factor.

That's what Jimmy Butler says is the key to their resiliency. The I don't give a damn factor. We just don't care. And that is a powerful place to be. When you don't care, you have freedom. When you don't care what people think of you or say or how they doubt you or how they have buried you before you even started, you're going to be a footnote to history. You're living on borrowed time, you're playing with house money, yada, yada, yada, yada. You're going to get swept.

Oh, nah, we don't care. It's the I don't give a damn factor. It's fantastic. Duncan Robinson had all 10 of his points in the fourth quarter. And if you're watching these playoffs, you know that he has at times sparked some pretty impressive runs by the Heat because he's a streaky shooter. He heats up quickly. Haha.

No pun intended, but it works so perfectly. And then they get him the ball. And he's active.

And he's running all over the place like he owns the joint. And actually, after he helps the Heat extend the lead, that full head of steam, he had to drive in for a dunk. A lot of times we're seeing him shoot three pointers, but this time he drove in for a dunk over the top of a nugget. He dunked on a nugget. He flexed.

Oh, Duncan Robinson, what was that about? I mean, I surprised myself with the fact that I pulled that one out. That was not premeditated at all. That was a spur of the moment sort of thing. Truth be told, I don't get a lot of moments throughout the season to break that one out. So when you get one, you've got to try to take advantage of it, I guess. But mostly just trying to play with a certain level of joy. I feel like I play my best when I'm having fun. And I'm always going to try to be respectful with it, but having fun and enjoying just this stage. I mean, this is an incredible stage to be on as a player.

This is what you dream about. So it doesn't make any sense to get here and not enjoy it. Agreed. Might as well enjoy it. Not to mention, it's fun. It's supposed to be fun. It's basketball.

You're winning. After watching the Warriors demonstrate and gesture and watching Steph shimmy, watching Draymond yell, I have no issues with Duncan Robinson flexing. All is good for the Miami Heat as they head home yet again with another home court advantage in their back pocket. Tonight actually set a record for the franchise most road playoff wins in a single postseason. Not every team has a great home court advantage, but the Celtics do, typically. The Nuggets were the best in the NBA this year at home. Only lost a handful of games at ball arena and hadn't lost in the playoffs. So this is a big deal. I know it wasn't game one, but typical of the Heat, better late than never.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. All right, Mike Malone, eight years as the head coach of the Denver Nuggets has already indicated that they haven't accomplished a darn thing yet. If they don't win this championship, this was all a waste.

And he hates it when his team doesn't give 100%. Let's talk about effort. I mean, this is NBA finals, and we're talking about effort.

That's a huge concern of mine. And you guys probably thought I was just making up some storyline after game one when I said we didn't play well. We didn't play well. And tonight, the starting lineup to start the game is 10 to 2 Miami. Start the third quarter, they scored 11 points in two minutes and 10 seconds. And we just got, we had guys out there that were just, whether feeling sorry for themselves for not making shots or thinking they can just turn it on or off, this is not the preseason. It's not the regular season. This is the NBA finals.

And that to me is really, really perplexing, disappointing. And I asked the team, I asked that player, you guys tell me why we lost. And they knew the answer. Miami came in here and outworked us. And we were by far our least disciplined game of the 16 or 17 playoff games, whatever it is now.

So many breakdowns. And they exploited every one of those breakdowns and scored. So if we're going to try to go down there and regain control of the series and get home court advantage back, we're going to have to outwork Miami, which we didn't do tonight.

And our discipline is going to have to be off the charts. An early fourth quarter run, 17 points to just 5 for the Nuggets. And at that point, the Nuggets advantage was gone.

And some of these numbers are pretty astounding. For Denver, they were 11-0 in these playoffs when they led by double figures. And this is the first time they've lost at home and the first time they've coughed up a double figure lead.

And how about this? 37-1 this season when they led by at least eight heading into the fourth quarter. So as much as they like to flirt with disaster, they still have managed to slam the door when they're up by double figures.

But along come Gabe Vincent and Duncan Robinson put together 12 consecutive points in the fourth quarter. And there goes them apples. Or is it, how do you like them apples? There goes them. Yeah, whatever.

You know me in cliches. Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic will hear from them as well. Game three is not for a while.

Game three doesn't come up till Wednesday. They have a lot of time to stew on this one. And they're gonna travel to South Florida where you know the Heat fans will be rocking the house. You think there are celebrities in Denver attending the game and there were, there were some Hall of Famers specifically who were there and then a bunch of Broncos who were there. I remember seeing Peyton Manning, the commissioner. He was there too with his wife.

Well, that's nothing compared to what they'll get in South Florida where celebrities roam South Beach. I'm not gonna use the cliche, but it is really funny. And I think it's so dumb, it makes me roll my eyes. As if one game was the end of the series. But now, oh, we have our herself a series. Oh, we do? Good, glad someone told the Heat.

All right, on Twitter, A Law Radio. And actually I haven't posted the link yet, but part of what I was doing this weekend, kind of passing the time before the game tipped off in the evening, I was finishing my blog post finally on the Grand Canyon. And the reason that it took me so long is because I've never put as many photos into one of my blog posts as I did in this one. And I was putting them in fun photo arrays and collages, and that's not really my area of expertise online. And so I was trying to figure it out with WordPress, which is the mechanism for my blog. So the link is actually on my Twitter page, my actual Twitter page, my header page. If you wanna check it out, I haven't shared it online yet, but yeah, it was a lot of fun to finally get that done. I think it might be the blog post of which I am most proud. So if you need a little light reading, mostly it's pictures, it's like USA Today. There's a little bit of writing, there's a lot of pictures.

You can check it out on my blog and it's AmyLawrencePXP.com. So still more from the Nuggets, plus a big series in Los Angeles this weekend for two of the top teams in Major League Baseball. Although can we still call the Dodgers a top team in Major League Baseball? I'm not sure.

The question remains to be answered. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. Yeah, a personal 12 nothing run, 12 consecutive points for Gabe Vinson and Duncan Robinson there in the fourth quarter, as you hear with Jason Jackson and Ruth Riley on Heat Radio. And then after that, the Nuggets really didn't have much of an answer outside of Jamal Murray. They missed some easy shots, they turned the ball over, they fumbled and they stumbled, and the Heat at that point had already grabbed the lead and grabbed the momentum. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio.

Bam out of bio. And Jimmy Butler were both very complimentary of their teammates. And what did Jimmy Butler tell us, even going back to the Eastern Conference Finals? We don't care who wins what, it doesn't matter to us.

We don't care about role players, quote unquote, because every game the roles change. We just want to win and collectively that's powerful. Collectively that gives them a chemistry that is also a sizable advantage against opponents who don't have that same chemistry. Now I do believe the Nuggets have it, but they allowed the Heat to hang around and hang around and that tenacity and that toughness and that we will fight you mentality kicked in. And it had to do with some of the guys off the bench, right? It wasn't just Jimmy Butler and Bam out of bio, but they do love to praise one another. And Bam was asked, when did he know that Gabe Vincent was a special teammate? Man, when he torched us in the Olympics, in the exhibition game facing Nigeria, he came out with that type of energy, that type of, that type of ferocity and that anger.

And I feel like that's from there, I was like, nah, he's one of us. Don't you think that fits right in with the Heat? Ferocity, anger, and I even said it last week, they play angry, they play better angry. They play better when the pressure is mounted and the doubters are lined up.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Now, Nikola Jokic should have 41 points, but as a bunch of people have pointed out, he did not have the triple double because he's had just a handful of assists. Now his assists are pretty. You watch this guy pass and their touch passes, great court vision. I even heard one of the announcers, I don't remember which one, call him a point guard in a seven foot body. Isn't that what LeBron, LeBron James is jealous.

That's what he wants to be, a point guard in a 6'10 body. So Nikola only had four assists on this night. He was harassed a bit by the Heat and he turned the ball over five times. It's rare that he has more turnovers than he does assists. But 41 points, 11 rebounds, and yeah, it's wasted in their first home loss of the post season. We didn't want it to happen, of course, but it happened, so we're gonna live with it.

But we're going to Miami to play in other games. Jamal Murray definitely ticked, definitely feeling like they let an opportunity slip away. 18 points for him, 10 assists. He did have a couple of late threes that brought the Nuggets within a possession and they did have 12 seconds. The ball in 12 seconds trailing by three, but his triple went high off the rim and didn't drop through at the, well, not quite at the buzzer. It was about a second to go when he launched it. And he was already turning to his left. I'm not sure if you've seen the shot. He was not set. He was already turning away and was already kind of on the move.

So it wasn't a set shot, which is why the ball was offline. You ask them what went wrong and it's pretty interesting. Now, maybe this comes out of their post-game conversation in the locker room because Mike Malone said he asked them, what went wrong?

What did you see? What was missing? And Jamal Murray highlights communication.

We weren't talking. We weren't out there playing as a team. And that's one of the challenges against the Heat. If you don't play as a team, they will eat you up because they do. So yeah, the discipline, the focus, the communication, sticking together, not panicking if shots aren't dropping. I mean, these are all ways that Heat get to you, right?

This is how they get under your skin. You start to think about it. You start to stress over it and then you're out of your rhythm. From the start of the game, I just think we didn't communicate well on their screens and we're giving them open shots, giving them back doors or pocket passes. We just weren't as disciplined as we need to be at this stage of the season. So we just gotta be better all around, I think, for four quarters, not just that last quarter. Yeah, and you could definitely see the communication breakdowns that led to disasters on defense. And over and over, dagger, dagger, dagger by Miami. They certainly have the ability to cut your heart out with a spoon.

Ow, no, that's awful. But that's their instinct though. They may have that instinct as an advantage over the Nuggets because I'm not sure the Nuggets have that same killer instinct. Now, if they're going to win this title, they need to, but the Heat are already inbred with it.

It's already there. Let's talk to Robert, who's in Charlotte. Robert, welcome to After Hours, CBS Sports Radio. Amy, how are you?

I'm good, thank you. Listen, Joe Kitch is, you know, I watched him over the years. He is becoming who he is as a great player. But to me in the previous years, he was kind of like a jovial guy. You know, when I saw him walk into the press conference, I've never seen him like that. He was, he was upset. I mean, he was a guy that was looking at the score sheet. He wasn't smiling.

He wasn't joking around. So it's going to be real interesting to see what happens in the next game. But I tell you, you know, Murray and the rest of those guys, they better get the same meds as Jokis has because Miami's not playing. And, you know, if they, you know, if it's going to be interesting, it's going to be, you know, Miami talked about that they met force for force. So it's going to be interesting to see if Denver comes out and meets force for force and what Miami does if those threes aren't falling and what they do.

Right. Well, in game number one, we saw that the threes weren't falling. They felt like they had made some adjustments on defense in the second half, but they had already been burned by Jokis and his 10 assists in the first half of the opener, right?

Standing up at the free throw line or high post and setting up his teammates. And so that got everybody involved and that actually played really well for them. They were able to hold their lead. In tonight's game two, what you saw was Miami spread the offense and forced Denver to have to run all over the place and defend. And because the shots were dropping, then they were, they were crazy about getting back on defense was huge. So yeah, Miami was the team that had a lot more energy, I thought. And maybe there is something to be said about tired legs coming off the Boston series or just a bit of an emotional and physical let down because they left so much out there against the Celtics.

Well, I tell you what's going to have to happen. If they're going to play Jokis like that, then Murray's going to have to play traditional point guard. He's going to have to get in the lane, get to the basket, he's going to have to make those assists.

Yeah. They definitely are better when they're attacking the hoop. And so we saw that, we saw it in stretches tonight, but then they kind of stopped doing that and seemed to react more to the heat. But yeah, they're a better team when they get their rear ends inside the paint. And I would have said the same thing about the Celtics too, right? I couldn't figure out. They kept firing threes in game seven even though they were not dropping, nobody was hitting them.

And so why not use your athleticism to get to the rim? Yeah, this next game is going to be a war because you're going to have two really determined teams. And I tell you, I have to work that night, but I'll be getting my work done earlier and I'll have my phone, I'll be watching from an undisclosed location. All right, I appreciate that. And then of course we'll go over it on Wednesday night. Thank you so much, Robert. All right. 855-212-4227, that's our toll free line.

855-212-4CBS. Yeah, so while this game was going on and we'll talk about with Matt Moore, more with Matt Moore at the top of the hour, he'll join us from Denver. The late guy still tweeting from his multiple Twitter accounts and reading and watching and writing. The Yankees and Dodgers were wrapping up their series at Chavez Ravine. And so for the Yankees, they've been on quite a tear. They've had some great offense. Every now and then they seem to get some pitching and maybe don't need as much offense.

So that's not generally their formula. No Aaron Judge on Sunday night, because if you didn't see it, he ran through a wall making a running catch on Saturday. Actually had to reenter the field of play because he was out of the field. Was he in the bullpen?

Is that where he went? He was in the bullpen after making a catch in Los Angeles. And so he was not in the lineup, but a real strong performance from Klay Holmes in relief of Domingo Hermon. So Hermon is able to limit the Dodgers to just one run. And then Klay Holmes comes in in relief and is nearly unhittable. Well, he's unhittable for an inning and kind of snuffs out any rally.

And it was just enough offense from the Yankees. Kynor Falefa leading off second and the lefty Ferguson to the plate. Swinging a deep shot left field. Backing up is Altman. He's watching it.

It is gone! A home run! Anthony Volpe goes yard into left field and hits the bleachers. A two-run shot and some ninth inning insurance for the Yankees. The rookie with his ninth home run of the season, and the Yankees are now ahead 4-1. Anthony Volpe leading a bit of a charmed life early in his baseball career. At 22 years old, not a lot of pressure.

Well, okay, let me take that back. He's hitting at the bottom of the lineup. They don't need him to be blasting home runs. But when you're a shortstop for the New York Yankees, of course there's pressure just because of the position.

So far, so good. And while he's still hitting under 200, he has some pretty timely hits. His ninth home run there, Justin Shackle, on WFAN, the New York Yankees Radio Network, and our New York affiliate. So they get the best of the Dodgers, 4-1, even without Aaron Judge, working on this West Coast road trip. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio.