MOMENTS NBA Finals
115
assembled a line of 40 assists and two steals Hornets, becoming the first Wilt Chamberlain in 1968. mused nonchalantly. consumed 20 rebounds. talent,” Nuggets coach was also his fifth trinascent season.
125, OT jam
called his explosion above in-game dunk he’d ever deemed it the dunk of the still four months left in the exploded for a rim-rattling Suns on Christmas Night it was stunning. The Gordon’s aerial acrobatics, overtime, and Denver had its season.
116 entertained?”
at 116 with only a few Jokic came through once ball near the top of the winning 3-pointer over you not entertained?” Malone joked after his came through in the clutch show of dominance at home, Nuggets’ 13th straight win
112 here
had already secured the record for assists in mid-jancareer-triple-double came After securing yet another in just 28 minutes in a Jokic quipped: “Not bad was, of course, speaking he inflates his numbers. It times Jokic had ever spoken
NUGGETS 119, PISTONS 100 Coming together
March 18: The Nuggets had lost four in a row and were about to start a long East Coast swing. They’d dropped a game in Toronto when the Nuggets’ veterans decided to intervene. “Who do we want to be?” Kentavious Caldwell-pope said when asked about the veteran-led meeting. Between Caldwell-pope, Deandre Jordan, Jeff Green and Ish Smith, Denver’s veterans had made their point.
NUGGETS 118, SUNS 102 Killing them with kindness
May 9: During an impromptu pre-game meeting, Nikola Jokic offered an olive branch to Suns owner Mat Ishbia when he passed him a ball from his warmups. It effectively ended a beef from the prior game, even though Jokic had to pay a fine following their Game 4 dustup in the corner of the Footprint Center. Joker killed him with kindness, then turned the knife on his Suns with a 29-point, 13-rebound, 12-assist triple-double that effectively turned the tide of the Western Conference semifinal series.
NUGGETS 108, LAKERS 103 Jamal catches fire
May 18: Hot doesn’t even begin to describe Jamal Murray in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers. Murray was flammable in the fourth quarter when he scored 23 of his 37 points to stake the Nuggets to a commanding 2-0 lead over Lebron James’ Lakers. Murray went big-game hunting with a few audacious 3-pointers to whip Ball Arena into a frenzy. What preempted the eruption? Murray said it was meditation. “Sometimes I need to settle the hell down,” he said.
NUGGETS 113, LAKERS 111 No rest for the Joker
May 22: Nikola Jokic went into Los Angeles and silenced the Lakers’ star-studded crowd. His eighth triple-double of the postseason set an NBA record and thrust the Nuggets into their first-ever NBA Finals with a 4-0 sweep. Having done the hard work, Jokic refused to break routine. In a makeshift weight room behind a black curtain, Jokic got a postgame lift in while listening to none other than “The Joker” by The Steve Miller Band.