Down 3-1 in NBA Finals, Heat looking for inspiration any place they can find it against Nuggets

DENVER: The Miami Heat are searching for inspiration anywhere they can find it, including a tennis great’s record-setting win at the French Open and even their mascot’s quick rebound from a few punches to the face.

Jimmy Butler and the Heat might be down 3-1 in the NBA Finals against the Nuggets heading into Game 5 on Monday night in Denver, but they hardly consider themselves out.

“(Our belief) is at an all-time high,” said Butler, whose team is hoping to avoid watching the Nuggets celebrate their first NBA title. “It always has been all year. It always will be.”

From Day 1, the Heat have demonstrated their scrappiness. At first, it was in scrimmages against each other in training camp and later in earning the No. 8 seed into the postseason through a second chance in the play-in tournament. They knocked out Giannis Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee in the first round, then the New York Knicks, and rebounded in Game 7 in Boston after squandering 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.

Bottom line: They’re used to doing things the hard way.

“They love the ultimate challenges and the ultimate competition,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “The narratives are not going to decide it. Whatever the analytics are about 3-1, that ain’t going to decide it. It’s going to be decided between those four lines, whose game can get to whose game and ultimately win at the end. That’s what our guys love.”

A little motivation goes a long way, too. They drew encouragement from Serbian great Novak Djokovic earning his men’s-record 23rd Grand Slam singles championship Sunday with a victory over Casper Ruud.

The Heat are trying to channel the inner belief Djokovic displayed as they face another Serbian standout in Nuggets big man Nikola