Denver Nuggets Win NBA Title, Nikola Jokic Named Finals MVP
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The NBA Finals are officially over, and the Denver Nuggets are your 2022-23 NBA CHampions. After the 94-89 victory in Game 5 at the Ball Arena, Nikola Jokic added another MVP to his name, NBA Finals MVP.
Jokic scored 28 points, 16 rebounds, and four assists in the game-clincher. The win is the first in the history of the Nuggets franchise. After the game, Jokic said to ESPN’s Lisa Salters: “It’s good. It’s good. The job is done, and we can go home now.”
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Jokic is now the third second-round pick to win Finals MVP, joining Willis Reed and Dennis Johnson. He also joins Giannis Antentokounmpo, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Hakeem Olajuwon as the only international players to win Finals MVP.
Murray added 14 points, eight assists, and eight rebounds in what was a grinder of a defensive game. “I knew once we were healthy, we could do it,” Murray said to ESPN at the conclusion of the game.
He added, “I think this is the first of many.”https://twitter.com/nuggets/status/1668476592652185600?s=20
After taking a fourth-quarter lead by as many as seven, the HEAT and Jimmy Butler did what they have done all season long, not give up. Butler poured in a personal 11-0 run to take an 87-86 lead with 2:47 minutes remaining, but the Nuggets were able to finish the game.
After the game, HEAT head coach Erik Spoelstra said there were no regrets about how they played.
“There’s just sometimes where you get beat, and Denver was the better basketball team in this series,” Spoelstra said. “That’s about as hard — I don’t know how long it would take me to go through the autopsy of this final game, but I would say that it will probably rank as our hardest, competitive, most active defensive game of the season, and it still fell short.”
The HEAT’s run falls short after an unlikely bid via the play-in tournament saw the HEAT beat powerhouses in the Antentokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks and the Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown-led Boston Celtics. They also dispatched the New York Knicks.
“I’m just grateful,” Butler said. “I learned so much. They taught me so much. I wish I could have got it done for these guys because they definitely deserve it.”
“You take the experience of this season, and if you can just bottle that up and everybody just have their own portion or rewritten story of it, the No. 1 thing, I think, would be will,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said. “So looking forward, I think this is one of my favorite teams I’ve ever been a part of because we willed our way through ups and downs.”
The city of Denver is now getting ready for a parade, which will happen this Thursday in Denver.
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