NBA Playoffs: Nuggets, Heat Near Finals Matchup; Can LeBron James’ Lakers Avoid Sweep?

The Mavs Step Back Podcast discusses everything going on in the NBA’s conference finals between the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics.

Dalton Trigg | May 22, 2023

Although the NBA conference finals haven’t been competitive from a series perspective — the Denver Nuggets lead the Los Angeles Lakers 3-0, and the eighth-seeded Miami Heat also took a 3-0 lead over the Boston Celtics on Sunday — the theater has been entertaining.

After every Nuggets win, the narratives in the national media have continued to be about LeBron James and the Lakers. Denver head coach Mike Malone has taken this personally, and given how his team has responded by pushing the Lakers to the point of being swept, they’ve taken it personally too.

Said Malone after their Game 2 victory in Denver: “The narrative wasn’t about the Nuggets. The narrative wasn’t about Nikola. The narrative was about the Lakers and their adjustments. So, you know, you put that in your pipe, you smoke it, and you come back and you know what, we’re gonna go up 2-0.”

Meanwhile, Jimmy Butler’s Cinderella run with the Heat stayed hot on Sunday, as Miami ran the Celtics off the floor en route to a 3-0 lead. Nearly three years removed from making an NBA Finals appearance in the Orlando Bubble, the Heat are on the verge of making it back again. Butler has talked a lot of trash along the way, but unlike the Heat teams from 2010-2014, it’s easier to root for this year’s version.

We discuss all of the latest playoff drama, as well as the latest rumors regarding Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving, in today’s episode of the Mavs Step Back Podcast.

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Published May 22, 2023

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.