The Denver Nuggets won the first championship in franchise history after defeating the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night.
The centre was rewarded for his efforts, adding the distinction of NBA Finals MVP to his growing list of achievements that includes two regular season MVP awards.
The top seed in the Western Conference, Denver got over the hump by using home court to its advantage throughout the playoffs, accumulating a 10-1 record at Ball Arena, with the lone blemish being a Game 2 loss to the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed Miami.
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.
Jokić, the 28-year-old Serbian superstar, finished a historic run that saw him secure a record 10 triple-doubles, nearly averaging a triple-double per game, amassing averages of 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists.
Denver joined the NBA in 1976 after the ABA (American Basketball Association)-NBA merger, never making it past the Western Conference finals before this year after losing on four different occasions (1978, 1985, 2009, and 2020).
Canadian icon
Murray, 26, is the ninth Canadian to win an NBA title, joining:
- Mike Smrek (Lakers: 1987, 1988)
- Bill Wennington (Chicago Bulls: 1996, 1997, 1998)
- Rick Fox (Lakers: 2000, 2001, 2002)
- Joel Anthony (Heat: 2012, 2013)
- Cory Joseph (San Antonio Spurs: 2014)
- Tristan Thompson (Cleveland Cavaliers: 2016)
- Chris Boucher (Golden State Warriors: 2018; Toronto Raptors: 2019)
- Andrew Wiggins (Warriors: 2022)
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.:
Fans in Canadian basketball star Jamal Murray’s hometown of Kitchener, Ont., are ecstatic as he and the Denver Nuggets drive for a historic NBA championship victory over the Miami Heat.
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.
More to come.
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