That night, the first game to tip off was Game 2 of the series between the Denver Nuggets and the Oklahoma Thunder.
In the previous game, they had suffered a heartbreaking loss in Game 1 on their home court.
So the Nuggets immediately learned from the defeat, spending a great deal of time after the game studying what had gone wrong and reflecting on it. They were determined to turn things around in Game 2.
By contrast, the Thunder players seemed much more relaxed.
After all, once they had secured home-court advantage, they could afford to strategically sacrifice the second game.
Anyone could see that Denver would give everything they had and do whatever it took to win Game 2.
As defending champions, they certainly wouldn't want to fall into the huge early-series hole of being down 0–2...
So Donovan had already planned out the strategy for tonight's game before tip-off.
They would start by taking outside shots to see how the role players were feeling. If their shots were falling, they would fight for the win. If not, they would call it early and turn their attention to Game 3.
The next two games would both be at home for the Thunder. With such a huge advantage, avoiding a head-on clash tonight was a perfectly reasonable choice.
As it turned out, the Thunder's role players shot fairly well in the First Quarter.
Jeff Green even started the game by making all three of his attempts, an exceptional performance.
Riding that momentum, the Thunder briefly took a 31–27 lead in the First Quarter.
But as soon as the Second Quarter began, Denver started to turn up the heat.
First, Michael Porter started firing away from the perimeter, tying the score with a string of unreasonable three-pointers.
Then Jamal Murray went