Global Courant
DENVER — Confetti flying in Denver. The Nuggets pass the NBA championship trophy.
Those scenes that seemed impossible for decades, and recently started to feel unavoidable, finally became a reality on Monday night.
The Nuggets outlasted the Miami Heat 94-89 in an ugly, frantic Game 5 that failed to derail Nikola Jokic, who saved his teammates with 28 points and 16 rebounds on a night when nothing else seemed to work.
Jokic won the Bill Russell trophy as NBA Finals MVP – an award that certainly has more meaning to him than the two overall MVPs he won in 2021 and ’22.
“We’re not doing it for ourselves, we’re doing it for the man next to us,” Jokic said. “And therefore (meaning) this even more.”
Denver’s Death Eater was a horrific grind.
Unable to shake off the stubborn heat or the jitters on closing night, the Nuggets missed 20 of their first 22 three-pointers. They missed seven of their first 13 free throws. They led seven times late, before Jimmy Butler went away from Miami and scored eight consecutive points to give the Heat a one-point lead with 2:45 left.
Butler made two more free throws with 1:58 left to help Miami regain a one-point lead. Then, Bruce Brown got an offensive rebound and tip-in to give the Nuggets the lead for good.
Trailing by three with 15 seconds left, Butler grabbed a 3, but missed it. Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope each made two free throws to put the game out of bounds and clinch the title for Denver.
Butler finished with 21 points.
As ugly as it was, the aftermath was something the Nuggets and their fans all agreed was beautiful. At the final buzzer, fireworks exploded outside Ball Arena. Denver is home to the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time in the franchise’s 47 years in the league.
“It was ugly and we couldn’t take pictures, but we got through it in the end,” said Jokic. “I’m just happy we won the game.”
The Heat were, as coach Erik Spoelstra promised, a gritty, tenacious bunch. But their shooting wasn’t great either. Bam Adebayo had 20 for the Heat, but Miami shot 34% from the floor and 25% from 3. Until Butler went off, he was 2 for 13 for eight points.
The Heat, who survived a loss in the play-in tournament to become only the second No. 8 to make the final, insisted they didn’t like consolation prizes.
They played as if they expected to win, and during this game, which was settled as much by players ducking to the ground as by nice jump shots, it seemed for a while that they would win.
The Nuggets, who shot 37.6% from 3 for the series, shot 18% in this one. They committed 14 turnovers. Even with Brown and Caldwell-Pope’s clutch shots, they only went 13 for 23 from the line.
The tone of the game was set with 2:51 left in the first quarter, when Jokic got his second foul and joined Aaron Gordon on the bench. Jeff Green and Jamal Murray, who finished with 14 points and eight assists on a poor night, also joined.
It made the Nuggets cautious on both sides of the field for the rest of the half. Somehow, after shooting 6.7% from 3 – the worst first half in finals history (minimum 10 shots), they were only seven down.
True to the Nuggets’ personality, they kept pushing, charging at their opponent in waves, figuring out how to win a game against their type. Their fine game turned into a slugfest, but they came out anyway.
“That’s why basketball is a fun sport,” said Jokic. “It’s a living thing. You can’t say, “This is going to happen.” There are so many factors. I’m just happy we won the game.”
It felt almost perfect that an unannounced and once plump second-round draft pick from Serbia would be the one to lift Denver to the top of a league dominated for decades by superstars, first-round draft picks, and players who have led the way in selling sneakers and shoes. jerseys.
During their nearly five-decade stay in the league, the Nuggets have been the epitome of a lovable NBA backbencher – entertaining at times, adorned with rainbows on their uniforms and crowned by colorful characters on the floor and bench. But never quite good enough to break through against the biggest stars and better teams east, west and south of them.
Before this season, only two teams had been established before 1980 – the Nuggets and Clippers – that had never been to an NBA Finals. The Nuggets took their name off that list, then joined San Antonio as the second original ABA team to take the NBA’s biggest award. The other two ABAers, the Pacers and Nets, made it to the Finals but lost.
It was the Joker’s emergence as a jack-of-all-trades—even before Monday, he was the first player to record 500 points, 250 rebounds and 150 assists in a single postseason—that made the Nuggets a team to watch. Not everyone did. A shift to win couldn’t change Denver’s location on the map — in a weird overpass area time zone — and it didn’t change everyone’s view of the Nuggets.
Even in Denver.
There’s little doubt that this has always been a Broncos-centric kind of town. No win in Denver will surpass the day in 1998 when John Elway broke through and that team’s owner, Pat Bowlen, held up the Lombardi Trophy, declaring, “This one’s for John!”
But this? It doesn’t take up much room in the back seat. It’s for every Dan (Issel), David (Thompson), Doug (Moe), or Dikembe (Mutombo) who’s ever come up short or been passed over for a newer, shinier model with more glitter and more stars.
For the first time in 47 seasons, no one in the NBA shines better than the Nuggets.
“The fans in this city are incredible,” said team owner Stan Kroenke. “It means a lot to us to get this done.”
