By Ben Golliver
The Denver Nuggets waited 47 years to win their first NBA championship, so it was only right that they needed all 48 minutes to clinch it.
In a nervy final chapter to a sensational title run, the Nuggets survived a night filled with turnovers and missed three-pointers and one final push from Jimmy Butler to claim a 94-89 game five victory over the Miami Heat at Ball Arena on Tuesday (AEST).
Nuggets star Nikola Jokic rebounded from early foul trouble to finish with a team-high 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists to claim finals MVP honours and state his case as the best player in basketball.
“It was an ugly game,” said Jokic, who exchanged hugs with his wife and brothers during the post-game celebration. “We couldn’t make shots. But at the end we figured out how to defend.”
Denver showed its jitters with history on the line, committing three turnovers on their first four possessions and losing Jokic and Aaron Gordon to early foul trouble. By the time Jamal Murray finally settled things down midway through the first quarter with a driving dunk, Denver’s excitable home crowd had devolved into annoyed groans.
Handed an opportunity to send the series back to Miami for game six, the Heat couldn’t maintain enough scoring momentum to take advantage. Miami made just two of its first 14 shots, and Butler went scoreless in his opening shift. An energetic Bam Adebayo picked up the slack with 14 points in the first quarter, though, and the Heat built a 10-point lead midway through the second quarter.
Denver Nuggets centre Nikola Jokic, right, and Miami Heat centre Bam Adebayo, compete for a rebound. Credit: AP
Denver, flummoxed by Miami’s zone defence, finally made its push midway through the third. Michael Porter jr brought the crowd back into the game with three transition plays: a pass to set up a Murray three-pointer, a transition layup he converted after dribbling between his legs backwards and then a three-pointer of his own on the next possession. Before Porter’s three-pointer, Denver had made just two of its first 22 shots from outside.
The endgame was as tense as the rest of the contest: Butler, who had just eight points on 2-10 shooting through three quarters, ripped off 13 straight points for Miami late in the third quarter. His run was boosted by a dubious foul call that nearly spoiled Denver’s celebration, as the officials determined that Butler was fouled by Gordon while shooting a three-pointer with 3:21 remaining in the fourth quarter. Replays appeared to indicate that Gordon didn’t initiate contact and Butler’s right leg had swung forward.
But the Nuggets stayed together in the closing minutes, getting a key steal from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope plus a crucial putback and two game-clinching free throws from Bruce Brown. Denver’s collective approach down the stretch, which included 10 fourth-quarter points from Jokic, epitomised a campaign in which they used their offensive chemistry and years of cohesion to defeat all comers.
Denver’s Bruce Brown reactions after the win. Credit: Getty Images
“All the hard work culminated with us winning a championship,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “But I’ve got news for you: We’re not satisfied with one. We want more.”
During an NBA regular season marked by parity, the Nuggets welcomed Murray back from a lengthy knee injury and quickly emerged as one of the steadiest contenders. As the Golden State Warriors struggled through a shaky title defence and both the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns made dramatic mid-season trades in hopes of climbing in the standings, Denver got out to an 8-3 start and claimed the Western Conference’s top seed on December 20, 2022. The Nuggets never relinquished pole position over the ensuing four months, racking up a 34-7 home record as Jokic turned in his third straight MVP-calibre campaign.
Nikola Jokic is presented the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award.Credit: Getty Images
Despite boasting a fifth-ranked offence and an upgraded supporting cast around Jokic and Murray, Denver cruised along under the radar for months as teams with more internal drama or more celebrated stars dominated the headlines and national television showcase games. Questions lingered about the Nuggets’ mediocre regular season defence, Jokic’s ability to play against spread line-ups in the playoffs and Murray’s consistency coming off an 18-month absence. Past post-season losses to the Lakers, Suns and Warriors led many observers to wrongly conclude that the Nuggets might not be able to translate their consistent regular season success into a deep run in the playoffs, where adjustments, versatility and experience are at a premium.
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray holds the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy.Credit: AP
Yet Denver answered every one of those questions convincingly during its 16-4 run to the title, the fastest championship path since Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and the Warriors went 16-1 in 2017. The Nuggets dispatched the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round in five games, knocked out the Suns in six and swept the Lakers in the Western Conference finals before their five-game finals triumph over the Heat. By the end, the Nuggets’ run had the air of anticlimax: They never trailed in a series, won 10 of their last 11 games, and went 10-1 at home.
“We are not winning for ourselves,” Jokic said. “We’re winning for the guys next to us. This is a great group of people. A great group of teammates. We believed in each other and the relationships we had with each other.”
This newfound dominance was a result of improved defensive intensity - and Jokic’s brilliant orchestration of the league’s most efficient post-season offence. Murray proved to be a reliable scorer and distributor regardless of how much defensive attention he commanded, and Denver got timely contributions from all of its main rotation players at some point along the way.
Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat battles Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. Credit: Getty Images
After Porter and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope each enjoyed outside shooting flurries in the early rounds, Aaron Gordon materialised as the X-factor in the finals against the Heat thanks to forceful rim attacks and his diligent defence on Butler. Rookie guard Christian Braun and back-up guard Bruce Brown each took a turn delivering game-changing performances against Miami.
“It took blood, sweat and tears to get back to this point,” Murray said. “We proved a lot of doubters wrong. I learned a lot by myself being out for two post-seasons. It’s full circle. It’s great to see it through.”
Denver’s egalitarian approach delivered a long-awaited championship and provided the ultimate validation of Jokic’s unselfish approach to basketball. The Serbian centre registered 10 triple-doubles during the title run, and he handily outplayed a series of formidable interior opponents: Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns; Phoenix’s Deandre Ayton; Los Angeles’s Anthony Davis; and Miami’s Bam Adebayo.
Too big and too skilled to handle one-on-one on the block, Jokic forced Denver’s playoff opponents into impossible predicaments. If they committed too much attention to him, he found Porter and Caldwell-Pope for three-pointers, tossed lobs to Gordon and found Braun for backdoor cuts. If teams tried to single-cover Jokic, he proved deadly at the rim with layups, in the paint with floaters and from beyond the arc with high-arching three-pointers that led LeBron James to compare him to Larry Bird.
Judged by Player Efficiency Rating, Jokic’s post-season play was comparable to the best runs from Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and James. Murray believes that his long-time pick-and-roll partner is just getting started.
“[Jokic] won his first MVP, and his numbers were better with the second MVP,” Murray said before game five. “His numbers are [even] better now. I think there’s more to come actually. I think we haven’t seen a side of Jokic that we are going to see: just pure dominance, all the way, the whole game. Even more than he has been.”
The 28-year-old Jokic joined Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki and Giannis Antetokounmpo as single-team stars who led the organisations that drafted them to championships. Given that the Nuggets drafted Jokic, Murray, Porter and Braun, Malone had said that their path to the title could become a “blueprint” for other small-market teams that are trying to remain competitive in an NBA landscape that is often driven by superstar trade requests. Indeed, Denver’s edge in continuity proved crucial against each of its first three opponents, as Minnesota, Phoenix and Los Angeles had all shaken up their rosters with major trades over the past 12 months.
“I feel really fortunate that our journey has been one of patience,” Malone said. “One of drafting really well and developing those players, and then adding the right pieces around them. Some teams want to mortgage their future and go get the surefire player, the All-Star. For us, there’s never been a rushed mentality. That starts with the ownership. The Kroenke family has been phenomenal allowing this thing to play itself out and not overreacting to other bumps in the road.”
Now that Jokic has reached the summit, it’s worth remembering that his individual development required a healthy dose of patience. Taken with the 41st pick in the 2014 draft, he waited a year before coming to the NBA. Facing doubts about his weight, conditioning and a Coca-Cola habit that reportedly reached three litres per day, Jokic hardly took the league by storm. He scored just two points in his October 28, 2015, debut at age 20, and he didn’t become a full-time starter until midway through his second season.
Nikola Jokic celebrates with his daughter Ognjena. Credit: Getty Images
The pace of his rise picked up from there, as he earned his first All-Star selection in 2019 and his first MVP in 2021. Still, Jokic’s reluctance to self-promote, engage deeply with the media or chase major sponsorship deals delayed his full embrace by television talking heads and casual basketball fans, much like Duncan and Kawhi Leonard before him.
After choosing not to campaign for his third straight MVP, Jokic finished second to Joel Embiid. Rather than use the snub as motivation, Jokic appeared annoyed when asked about the voting, saluted Embiid’s stellar season and said any critics of the Philadelphia 76ers centre’s selection were “mean”.
But a wider recognition of Jokic’s immense abilities started to develop this post-season, as he drilled clutch jumpers, dished an endless array of beautiful passes and outdueled megastars like James and Durant in front of healthy television audiences. Nearly nine years after ESPN aired a Taco Bell commercial while he was being selected in the second round of the 2014 draft, Jokic spent the last two months overtaking Antetokounmpo, Curry and others to become the best player in basketball.
“My journey,” he said this week, with a devout self-deprecation that has become his trademark. “I don’t think it’s that interesting.”
Washington Post