Nikola Jokic moves to the next level now, validating his status as one of the elite players in the NBA while advancing into an even more rarefied stratosphere of all-time greats who elevated their team to an elusive championship.
The two-time league MVP certainly made up for falling short on copping a third individual award in succession, fronting the Nuggets to the first NBA title in franchise history with Monday’s closeout Game 5 victory over the Heat in Denver.
The do-it-all center was simply marvelous yet again, particularly in the second half, even if he didn’t extend his record of 10 triple-doubles in a single postseason.
“It’s why basketball is a fun sport, It’s a live thing. You can’t say this is going to happen until it happens,” Jokic said afterward on ABC. “It’s good, the job is done and we can go home now.”
Behind the Serbian center’s 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists — teaming with fellow star Jamal Murray and a highly underrated supporting cast — the Nuggets slammed the door on Jimmy Butler and the pesky Heat, who fell three wins short in their bid to become the first No. 8 seed in league history to lift the championship trophy.
Jokic finished second to 76ers center Joel Embiid for regular-season MVP, which would have made him the first player to win that award three consecutive times since Larry Bird (1984-86) joined Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to achieve that feat in league history.
Instead, Jokic became the first player in NBA annals to lead all playoff performers in points, rebounds and assists for an entire postseason with one dominant performance after another.
“He won his first MVP and his numbers were better during the second MVP. And his numbers are better now,” Murray said of the 28-year-old Jokic. “I think there’s more to come, actually, from Joke. I think we haven’t seen a side of Joke that we are going to see where he can be just pure dominance all the way, the whole game, even more than he has been.”
Denver coach Michael Malone, the former Knicks assistant coach, actually attempted to talk his team into the mindset that it entered Game 5 trailing the Finals, 3-1, not the reverse.
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“We are approaching it as a must-win game. I know it’s a big opportunity, and I think everybody knows,” Jokic said Sunday.
Still, the Nuggets appeared the more jittery team for much of the first half, committing nine turnovers. The Heat missed 10 consecutive shots in the opening minutes, and the Nuggets grabbed a quick 12-5 lead, but Denver clanked 14 of 15 attempts from 3-point range and trailed by seven, 51-44, at intermission.
That shooting display generated only one trademark “Bang!” on ABC from longtime Knicks voice Mike Breen, who became the third basketball play-by-play announcer to call at least 100 NBA Finals games on TV or radio, behind only Chick Hearn (121) and Johnny Most (103).
“My biggest concern going into any close-out game is human nature and fighting against that,” Malone said before the game. “Most teams, when you’re up 3-1, they come up for air. They relax and they just kind of take it for granted like, ‘Oh, we’re going to win this.’
“We know anything is possible. They are desperate, we have to be more desperate. They are hungry, we have to be hungrier.”
Malone even had to dust off former All-Star center DeAndre Jordan for a few first-half minutes with Jokic and Aaron Gordon each picking up two fouls in the first quarter.
It took Murray much of the regular season to fully regain form after missing all of the 2021-22 season recuperating from ACL surgery. Following a quiet first half (four points, 0-for-4 from deep) Murray knocked down a couple of key 3-pointers in the second half — with recent draft picks Michael Porter Jr. and Christian Braun and Denver’s other role players also making huge plays late — to help Jokic earn his first career ring.
“It was long before we made it here that I thought this was going to happen,” Murray said. “I had a belief of being in the playoffs before, having the experience, seeing the team and the chemistry grow, having the same core my whole career, that’s when I saw it. That’s when I believed it.”
