Jokić-led Nuggets top Heat to win 1st NBA championship in franchise history
CBC
Confetti flying in Denver. The Nuggets sharing hugs while passing around the NBA championship trophy.
Those scenes that, for almost a half-century, seemed impossible, then more recently started feeling inevitable, finally turned into reality Monday night.
Jokić became the first player in history to lead the league in points (600), rebounds (269) and assists (190) in a single postseason. Not surprisingly, he 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 and the one that escaped him this year.
"We are not in it for ourselves, we are in it for the guy next to us," Jokić said. "And that's why this (means) even more."
WATCH | Denver wins 1st title:
The Nuggets were powered throughout the playoffs by the dynamic duo of Jokić and Kitchener, Ont., native Jamal Murray.
The pair combined for 42 points in the title-clinching victory, and their consistently superlative play proved to be too much to handle in series wins over the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers and Heat over the last two months of playoff action.
Murray, 26, is the ninth Canadian to win an NBA title, joining:
Wiggins' 16.5 points per game was the highest total for a Canadian in a championship run before Murray averaged 26.1 across Denver's 20 playoff games this year.
WATCH | Jamal Murray gets hometown love in Kitchener, Ont.:
Murray — who missed the entire 2021/22 season with an ACL tear — now holds the top two spots for most points by a Canadian player in a playoff run with 522 in 2023 and 504 in 2020.
Denver's clincher was a gruesome grind.
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.
