DENVER — Miami had owned the fourth quarter throughout the NBA Finals — they were +20 in the final frame through four games. The Heat were clutch on the NBA’s biggest stage as they had been throughout the playoffs.
Yet with the Larry O’Brien trophy waiting in the wings — and Jimmy Butler willing his team as best he could with 13 straight points to keep the Heat right there — the Nuggets and Nikola Jokić were the better clutch team Monday night.
The Denver Nuggets got 10 in the fourth from Jokić and won the quarter by six. With that came he first championship in the Nuggets’ 47-year history.
The Denver Nuggets are NBA champions, taking Game 5 94-89, and the NBA Finals 4-1.
“Since day one in San Diego [where the Nuggets had training camp], it was something different about this team. I felt it,” Jokic said. “I felt some different energy and every day since then I had the same feeling. I’m not really optimistic guy, but that gave me hope that we can do something.”
Jokić was the unanimous Finals MVP. He earned it by averaging 30.2 points, 14 rebounds and 7.2 assists a game through the Finals, but more importantly, he earned that with his defense all series. What was supposed to be the weak spot in his game, his rim protection was the difference all series long — he had Heat players on the drive pulling up or double-thinking and double-clutching what they wanted to do.
Nikola Jokic is presented with the Bill Russell Trophy as the 2022-23 #NBAFinals MVP 👏 pic.twitter.com/enfQxUJzZx
— NBA (@NBA) June 13, 2023
Miami didn’t make it easy. They threw sand into the gears of Game 5 and ground it down into their style of play. In what had been the slowest-paced NBA Finals in a decade, the Heat brought the best of their style and culture to Game 5. It speaks to why the Nuggets are champions that they could win in that style, too.
“What I was most proud about is throughout the game, if your offense is not working and your shots are not falling you have to dig in on the defensive end,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I thought our defense tonight was great.”
“I feel like that game was just intense and it was physical. People were missing shots. Like it wasn’t a pretty basketball game,” Michael Porter Jr. said on a night he shot 7-of-17. “But that’s what winning a championship is about. You’ve got to be able to win it in many different ways.
“We didn’t shoot the ball good all game. I didn’t shoot the ball good. As a team we didn’t shoot the ball good. But to win a championship that’s what it takes. That’s what’s different about the Playoffs and the regular season. Forget about the stats, forget about the shooting percentage. It’s just about winning.”
That pivotal fourth quarter started with a 5-0 Denver run, not coincidentally with Bam Adebayo on the bench. While the Nuggets hit some 3s (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had one, as did Jamal Murray) the reason they hoisted the trophy was that for the rest of the quarter the Nuggets played their best defense of the series, shutting off nearly everything the Heat wanted to do.
This is just mean https://t.co/2aUib61LhV pic.twitter.com/lO6ar8oe0N
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) June 13, 2023
Nearly everything because Butler — who had a good but not great series and looked gassed at points in Game 5 — found another gear when he had to. Butler tried to take over the game in the final five minutes fourth and was aided by a drawing a bizarre foul call on Aaron Gordon on a 3 (the replay center somehow upheld the call despite it being obvious on video the contact was from Butler kicking his legs out). It just wasn’t enough as, once again, the Heat couldn’t generate enough offense in this series.
This was a defensive, ugly game.
The first half was played completely on Miami’s terms — it felt like a Celtics/Heat game from the Eastern Conference Finals. Denver got sucked into the game and struggled, shooting 1-of-15 from 3 with 10 turnovers, and had an 88 offensive rating for the half. The Nuggets got the kind of shots they hit in the last couple of games, they just missed them.
The game was sloppy from the opening tip: The Nuggets opened 3-of-7 with four turnovers, while the Heat shot 2-of-12. Aaron Gordon picked up two early fouls, one on a charge drawn by Strus. Later in the quarter, Jokić picked up his second trying to draw an ill-advised midcourt charge. The second Jokić sat, Bam Adebayo got back-to-back and-1’s on Jeff Green, and the Heat took a small lead, which they kept to the end of the quarter, 24-22. The teams combined to shoot 2-of-14 from 3 in the first.
Miami stretched their lead out in the second quarter because they attacked and played downhill — 24 of the Heat’s first 35 shots were in the paint. They made a consistent effort to get to the rim, no pull-ups, and they put pressure on refs.
The third quarter continued the theme of an ugly game, although the Heat attacked less and settled more, and Denver hit a couple of 3s (they also missed six). Porter Jr. was engaged and had one coast-to-coast drive for the ages.
What a finish by MPJ! 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/xdR6JNCNmb
— NBA TV (@NBATV) June 13, 2023
It was anyone’s game, 71-70 Heat entering the fourth.
That’s when the Nuggets saved their best for last. And they are NBA champions because of it.
