Jimmy Butler, Heat Ripped for Shooting in Game 1 Loss vs. Nikola Jokić, Nuggets

It was a rough night for Jimmy Buckets and the Miami Heat.

Coming off a massive Game 7 win in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, Miami seemed to be carrying a lot of momentum from a hot shooting night going into Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the well-rested Denver Nuggets.

Any momentum didn't carry over as the team struggled for most of the night in a 104-93 loss to the Nuggets at Ball Arena.

Although the Heat's key role players from the Boston series struggled mightily—Caleb Martin and Max Strus went a combined 1-of-17 from the field—Jimmy Butler didn't set the tone that his team needed in a game of huge magnitude.

Butler, the Eastern Conference Finals MVP, had just 13 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and lacked some his signature aggression as Denver's stars shone bright. Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray combined for 53 points.

Bam Adebayo led the Heat with an impressive 26 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. He just didn't get enough help from his costar.

Miami shot 40.6 percent from the field and ended up 33.3 percent from deep thanks to some late, streaky shooting from Haywood Highsmith, Kyle Lowry and Gabe Vincent.

Heat Twitter was a bit frustrated with the cold shooting night.

Another issue was that Miami struggled to defend the Nuggets's dynamic offense for long periods of the game, falling behind by as many as 24 points before making several runs late to keep itself in it.

Jokić was giving the Heat fits with another triple-double as he finished with 14 assists and 10 rebounds to go along with a game-high 27 points.

All but one player in Denver's starting five finished in double-digit scoring.

The good news for the Heat is that their shooters seemed to catch a little fire toward the end of the game to bring the deficit to nine with a couple of minutes remaining, even with so many key contributors struggling.

Highsmith was particularly impressive on both ends as he dropped 18 points and also did a good job on Jamal Murray defensively. He could be another ace up coach Erik Spoelstra's sleeve as they go deeper into the series.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Heat only shot two free throws and were still in it late into the night. So, it's not all doom and gloom going into Game 2.

Game 2 is set for Sunday night at 8 ET on ABC.