Denver Nuggets outlast Miami Heat to claim 47-year NBA first
Nikola Jokic was crowned Finals MVP as the Denver Nuggets ascended to the top of the NBA mountain.
For the first time in their 47-year history in the NBA, the Denver Nuggets are champions. Led by two-time league MVP Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets managed to hang on against the Jimmy Butler-inspired Heat in game five of the series, winning 4-1.
The Heat were the most unlikely of finals opponents, making it all the way from the play-in tournament to defeat the top two seeds in the Eastern Conference on their way to the Finals, and threatened to send it to a sixth game back in Miami when Butler went on a nine-point run on his own late in the fourth quarter. But the Nuggets did just enough to hang on for a series-clinching 94-89 victory.
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Jokic, who became the first player in NBA history to lead all players in points, assists and rebounds throughout the entire playoffs, was also named Finals MVP. It is the first time Denver have won the title, a long-awaited breakthrough for a team which originally joined the league as part of the NBA/ABA merger in 1976.
The hard-fought deciding game was not without controversy however, as the Heat threatened to spoil the coronation aided by a three-point foul on Butler that mystified the NBA world. Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon was whistled for getting into the landing space of Butler's shot late in the fourth, with replays showing he'd made no contact with the Heat star.
Nuggets coach Michael Malone challenged the call but it was upheld, prompting widespread confusion among fans watching on. However the Nuggets weren't swayed, managing to regain the momentum courtesy of a key triple and subsequent steal from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Nikola Jokic leads Denver Nuggets to historic NBA triumph
Miami tread an unlikely path to the Finals, upsetting Milwaukee in the first round and outclassing the New York Knicks to progress to the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics. There, they took a 3-0 series lead before Boston charged back to level the series, only for the Heat to dominate game seven and earn another trip to the Finals, having last made it in 2020, where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Conversely, the Nuggets won their first round series against Minnesota in five games, against the Phoenix Suns in six before sweeping the Lakers in four games in the Western Conference Finals. Battling foul trouble and a Heat team that refused to die, Jokic amassed 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists in a 94-89 victory in front of the 19,537 raucous fans filling Ball Arena.
Jokic received all votes in the Finals MVP voting, concluding a historic playoff run for the 7-foot Serbian and his Denver teammates. As a two-time regular-season MVP and now champion, Jokic joins a heady list of basketball greats that includes only Bob Pettit, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The Nuggets led by seven late in the fourth quarter, and the Heat were on a five-minute scoring drought, when Butler scored 13 straight points for his team, raising the eighth-seeded zombies from the grave and taking an 89-88 lead into the final two minutes. A Bruce Brown put-back returned the lead to Denver, and Butler's turnover with 27.4 seconds left gifted the Nuggets a chance to finally lay Miami to rest. The Nuggets, 9-for-19 from the line at the time, made four straight free throws down the stretch to clinch.
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