Jokic and co beat Miami Heat 94-89 to end 47-season wait for silverware in front of sellout crowd
\nDENVER
\nThe Denver Nuggets sealed their first title in franchise history on Monday, defeating the Miami Heat 94-89 to end a 47-season wait for a maiden NBA championship.
\nNikola Jokic scored 28 points with 16 rebounds as the Nuggets won the best-of-seven NBA Finals 4-1 to bring the Mile High City an NBA crown as a sellout crowd roared in delight and pondered what more the young squad could achieve.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got news for everybody out there. We\u2019re not satisfied with one,\u201d Nuggets coach Michael Malone said afterwards. \u201cWe want more.\u201d
\nThe championship filled the final gap in the impressive resume of Serbian star Jokic, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player and five-time All-Star center in his eighth NBA campaign.
\nTwo days after countryman Novak Djokovic won the French Open for his record 23rd Grand Slam tennis crown, Jokic was named the NBA Finals MVP.
\n\u201cFor us he\u2019s the best ever of course,\u201d Jokic said of Djokovic. \u201cNow we have our NBA championship. It\u2019s a really good moment to be a Serbian.\u201d
\nJokic delivered on a night when the team struggled with early shooting futility but blanked Miami for more than five minutes of the fourth quarter.
\n\u201cIt was amazing effort by the team,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cIt was an ugly game. We couldn\u2019t make shots. But at the end we figured it out, how to defend and we scored 90 points. That\u2019s why we won. I\u2019m just happy we won the game. \u201cIt\u2019s good. The job is done and we can go home now.\u201d
\nMichael Porter Jr added 16 points and 13 rebounds and Jamal Murray added 14 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Nuggets. \u201cWe had the belief from the get-go,\u201d Murray said. \u201cIt\u2019s just great to see it through.\u201d
\n\u201cTo do it with this group of guys, nothing could feel better than this,\u201d Porter added.
\nJimmy Butler led Miami with 21 points while Bam Adebayo added 20 and 12 rebounds.
\nDenver was the playoff top seed in the Western Conference while the eighth-seeded Heat, who had to win a play-in game just to reach the playoffs, lost in the finals for the third time in 10 seasons.
\n\u201cOne hell of a basketball team that we couldn\u2019t really find enough solutions to be able to get us over the top,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
\nWith their seasons on the line, players brought intensity and physical defending over the final minutes to create an electric atmosphere inside Ball Arena.
\nThe Nuggets, down by as many as 10 points in the first half, pulled within 51-44 at half-time despite going 1-for-15 from 3-point range, the worst-ever NBA Finals shooting half from beyond the arc.
\nA Murray jumper gave Denver an 81-76 lead with 6:43 remaining while the Heat began the fourth quarter hitting only 2-for-14 from the floor and going scoreless for more than five minutes.
\nButler, who had struggled all night, sank back-to-back 3-pointers and made three free throws after a controversial foul on Denver\u2019s Aaron Gordon was upheld on video review.
\nButler and Jokic traded hoops and Butler followed with two free throws to give Miami an 89-88 lead.
\nBruce Brown answered with a rebound basket to put Denver ahead 90-89.
\n\u201cThose last three or four minutes felt like a scene out of a movie,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cTwo teams in the center of the ring throwing haymaker after haymaker.
\n\u201cIt will probably rank as our hardest, competitive, most active defensive game of the season, and it still fell short.\u201d
\nKentavious Caldwell-Pope stole a pass by Butler and sank two clutch free throws with 24 seconds remaining to give Denver a 92-89 edge.
\n\u201cFor me it was all about defense,\u201d Caldwell-Pope said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get stops. Defense was going to win us a championship. I always told them that.\u201d
\nButler missed a 3-pointer, Brown grabbed a rebound for Denver and then made two free throws to seal the victory with 14 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jokic and co beat Miami Heat 94-89 to end 47-season wait for silverware in front of sellout crowd DENVER The Denver Nuggets sealed their first title in franchise history on Monday, defeating the Miami Heat 94-89 to end a 47-season wait for a maiden NBA championship. Nikola Jokic scored 28 points with 16 rebounds as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-337538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n