Outclassed Miami look no match for the better team and the best player

After the Heat were outplayed and Jimmy Butler rendered all but irrelevant by the Nuggets in their NBA finals opener, Miami’s mission impossible is looking that much tougher

Maybe it was the thin air. Perhaps it was fatigue in their 21st game since the end of the regular season. Or just an inevitable reversion towards normality for the postseason’s greatest overachievers.

Whatever it was, it was quickly clear that anyone tuning in to the first game of the NBA finals on Thursday in the hope of witnessing a stirring mountain tale starring a brave band of odds-defying underdogs should have switched off the game and streamed The Sound of Music instead.