Confetti is flying in Denver as the Nuggets pass around the NBA championship trophy. Those scenes that, for decades, seemed impossible, then more recently started feeling inevitable, finally turned into reality Monday night, the AP reports. The Nuggets outlasted the Miami Heat 94-89 in an ugly, frantic Game 5 that did nothing to derail Nikola Jokic, who bailed out his teammates with 28 points and 16 rebounds on a night when nothing else seemed to work. Jokic won the Bill Russell trophy as the NBA Finals MVP—an award that certainly has more meaning to him than the two overall MVPs he won in 2021 and ’22. "We are not in it for ourselves, we are in it for the guy next to us," Jokic said. "And that’s why this (means) even more."
Denver's clincher was a gruesome grind. Unable to shake the tenacious Heat or the closing-night jitters, the Nuggets missed 20 of their first 22 3-pointers. They missed seven of their first 13 free throws. They led by seven late, before Miami’s Jimmy Butler went off, scoring eight straight points to give the Heat a one-point lead with 2:45 left. Butler made two more free throws with 1:58 remaining 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 jacked up a 3, but missed it. Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made two free throws each to put the game out of reach and clinch the title for Denver. Butler finished with 21 points.
Ugly as it was, the aftermath was something the Nuggets and their fans could all agree was beautiful. There were fireworks exploding outside Ball Arena at the final buzzer. Denver is the home of the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time in the franchise’s 47 years in the league. Over their near five-decade stay in the league, the Nuggets have been the epitome of a lovable NBA backbencher—at times entertaining, adorned by rainbows on their uniforms and headlined by colorful characters on the floor and bench. But never quite good enough to break through against the biggest stars and better teams to the east, west, and south of them. Before this season, there were only two teams founded before 1980—the Nuggets and Clippers—that had never been to an NBA Finals.
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