In my case, I took the -8.5 Nuggets, so it's also a winner.
The Miami Heat is not playing well when it comes to offense, Caleb Martin seems to be off night and that broke his consistent double digits in points in the Celtics series. Maybe in Game 2, he will be different. Gabe Vincent and Haywood Highsmith are the only ones who I think are confident enough to do some damage against the Nuggets. Bam's stats, should be normal, that's his average during the season. Something big is missing, Jimmy Butler. He is the one who creates a lot of free throws for the team but today they only shot 2/2 at the stripe. That means no one is putting a body against the Nuggets when it comes to offense and that should be Butler.
They are not aggressive enough and the Nuggets took advantage of that. The Heat are actually lucky the three-pointers of the Nuggets are not sinking in or else it could've been a big blowout.
But that made the game thrilling as the Nuggets allowed the Heat to make a good run in the 4th quarter. It was indeed a comfortable win for those who bet on the Nuggets, as the line was -9 and easily covered. However, bettors who placed props bets on Caleb Martin may have lost their money, as they were expecting him to perform consistently. Unfortunately, in this game, we didn't see the same Hero who excelled in Game 7 of the ECF.
Even though the Denver Nuggets commits more turnovers, it never became a factor for the opposite team as an advantage because it is just evident that they are struggling towards them. Although we can say that the Heat are already expecting it and might done some observations while remaining to be competitive, their stats are just different compared to the home team and what more if the Nuggets poured more energy in the fourth quarter, maybe we have witnessed a much bigger gap in their scores.