Miami Heat face elimination as Denver Nuggets go for first NBA title

The Denver Nuggets tonight they could bring home the first NBA championship in franchise history. That has not happened yet. Game five of the NBA finals between the Nuggets and the Miami Heat tips off at 830 p.m. Eastern. So let's be patient until then. Despite a 3-1 series lead, Nuggets' Nikola Jokic is calling tonight's game a must win. Meanwhile, the Heat looks to be the first team since the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers to come back after trailing 3-1. CBS Sports NBA staff writer Brad Bodkin joins us now for a lot more expert commentary than what I can provide. I'm just the fan. OK, so do you agree with the two-time MVP that despite being up 3-1 tonight is a must win for the Nuggets? No. I mean, let's just look at this mathematically. It's not a must win. But the sentiment that he is portraying, I agree with. Because the shifting dynamics, momentum in a series, Miami knows they failed to close out Boston in the conference finals at home. They had their chance in game five. That sends it back on the road to game, and they have to go on the road game six, and they lose there. And now you're in game seven. So they managed to pull that series out, but that's the road that the Nuggets don't want to go down. If they don't close it out at home tonight, now you go back to Miami, where Miami has been very good all playoffs long, and the pressure starts to go a little bit back on Denver's shoulders. Because you know, if we let this thing go to game seven, anything can happen there. So I agree with the sentiment in that they have to approach tonight's game with urgency. They can't look at it like we've got a 3-1 lead, and pretty much nobody ever blows a 3-1 lead. They have to look at tonight and say, we need to win this game. We need all of our focus. We can't let our guard down. But no, technically, it's obviously not a must win. And that's no fun. I mean, game seven series are the best. That's right. Spoken like a true fan. But who wants fewer games? But a win is a win. Brad, I think it was Jason Gay at the Wall Street Journal who said that the Heat are basically Jimmy Butler and four guys he picked up at Planet Fitness. What does he need to do with that crew to get the Heat back into the series? Oh man, that's a tough blow for some of his supporting cast there. Bam Adebayo is an all-star. They've got some good players. Kyle Lowry is going to end up in the Hall of Fame. They've got shooters. The Miami Heat are built, and we continue to sort of perpetuate this narrative that the Heat are, to your point, built up of a bunch of LA fitness guys. But this is a really good team. It really is. I think there's a very equitable landscape in the NBA right now. Unfortunately for the viewers, the regular season is not taken as seriously, and so you end up with these lower-seeded teams that sort of prep themselves to peak during the postseason, and their seed is not reflective of the talent that they have. The Miami Heat have a great culture, and that's what they're going to lean on tonight. Don't beat themselves. Don't turn the ball over. Get their tempo up. Get their shooting going. They were the fourth-worst three-point shooting team in the league during the regular season. They have completely flipped that during the postseason. They're making not only open three-point shots, but contested three-point shots at a high clip overall. If they get back to that tonight in Denver, they're a tough team to beat. Yes, every team in the NBA is basically the superstar, and everybody that plays off the superstar. So it's fair in that regard, but to downplay the Heat players as if they're a bunch of garbage men that got picked up on the replacements or something, that's not fair, and that's the mistake that people have been making since the start of these playoffs, and here they are in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. I'm so energized by that pep talk. I hope the Heat hear it today. For the record, it wasn't me. It was Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, fans in Denver paying $900,000 to $14,000 per ticket. That's that legal cannabis money, I think. Brad Botkin, thank you very much. All right, guys. Thanks for having me.