Up 1-0 in the NBA Finals, the way Nuggets coach Michael Malone spoke on Saturday after practice, you’d think his team had actually dropped the series opener.

“Yeah, I don’t think we played well in Game 1,” Malone said.

Miami’s poor 3-point shooting, which included just 5 for 16 on wide-open 3s on Thursday night? Not going to happen again, Denver’s coach said bruskly.

“As I told our players this morning, the fact that they got 16 wide-open 3s is problematic, and if you think that Max Strus is going to go 0 for 9 again or Duncan Robinson is going to go 1 for 5 again, you’re wrong,” he said.

Barely prompted, Malone turned his attention to the fourth quarter where the Nuggets were outscored 30-20 and saw a sizable double-digit lead shrink to just nine as the Heat found its 3-point stroke. Think Malone, with a chance to do something no other team in Nuggets history has done, would allow for even an ounce of complacency? Think again. No one’s getting fat with success right now. Not on his watch.

“I told our players today, don’t read the paper, don’t listen to the folks on the radio and TV saying that this series is over and that we’ve done something, because we haven’t done a (dang) thing,” Malone said with his trademark fire.

The pick-and-roll defense on Jimmy Butler, the second-chance opportunities, all of it was fair game as Malone audited their film. After the Heat managed just two free throws in Game 1, Malone said he was expecting a level of urgency and aggression from Miami that hadn’t been there. And what they did in Game 1, limiting Miami to 63 points through three quarters and improving to 9-0 at Ball Arena in the postseason, won’t have any bearing on what happens Sunday night.

Aaron Gordon admitted it’s hard not to let the outside chatter filter into his headspace.

“It’s difficult because the people around you get excited, as well,” Gordon said. “So, you have to keep like a calmness. You have to keep a poise to you, like an intense energy but calm, while the rest of everybody else is really frenetic. It’s important to just make the main thing the main thing and just be focused on what the task is at hand.”