SI:AM | The Nuggets Are No Joke
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I think Nuggets in five might be the first series I’ve picked correctly as a member of the media.
In today’s SI:AM:
⛰️ Denver’s journey to the top
🧑⚖️ A legal hurdle for the PGA and LIV?
If you're reading this on SI.com, you can sign up to get this free newsletter in your inbox each weekday at SI.com/newsletters.
It was a long time coming
Nikola Jokić’s moment has arrived.
The two-time MVP can now add an NBA championship and Finals MVP to his résumé after the Nuggets beat the Heat in Game 5 last night to clinch the series and win the franchise’s first NBA title.
There wasn’t one single reason why Denver won the series—its depth and Miami’s lack of it played significant roles—but Jokić’s ability to impact the game in a variety of ways was the biggest factor. No team in the league was able to figure out how to contain him during the regular season as he nearly won a third consecutive MVP, and the story was the same in the playoffs. The NBA’s most unstoppable player is a slow-moving, earthbound Serbian horse-racing enthusiast who was drafted during a Taco Bell commercial.
Game 5 wasn’t like the others in the series. At times (depending on your aesthetic preference) it was either ugly or a brilliant defensive struggle. Both teams shot poorly from the outside, with Miami making a mere 25.7% of its threes and Denver making an even worse 17.9%. Denver’s 94 points were the fewest by a winning team in a Finals game since the Cavaliers in Game 7 against the Warriors in 2016 (a 93–89 win for Cleveland).
The Nuggets were able to win despite their off night offensively because they succeeded in the area that had been subject to the loudest criticism: their defense. Here’s Rohan Nadkarni with more.
All year long, pundits, critics and Jokić skeptics waited for Denver’s defense to be exposed. That never turned out to be the case in the postseason. The Nuggets held Miami to only 89 points Monday, the fourth time in the series Denver held Miami to under 100 points, all wins. The slower pace helped with that, but so did the Nugs’ defensive effort. Denver finished the postseason with a 110.2 defensive rating, a mark that would have been good enough for second in the regular season. Jokić routinely bothered Miami at the rim, while his teammates on the perimeter hounded Miami’s shooters.
That strong defense held Heat star Jimmy Butler in check for most of the night as the Nuggets extended their lead to seven with under four and a half minutes to play. But as we’ve become accustomed to watching, Butler turned it on when his team needed him most. He scored 13 straight points for Miami in about two and a half minutes of game time, pushing the Heat ahead by one with less than two minutes to play.
Bruce Brown put Denver up one after an offensive rebound, setting up a dramatic final minute. The play that effectively sealed the game was a steal by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with under 30 seconds to play and the Nuggets clinging to a one-point lead. Butler drove into the lane and tried to kick it out to Max Strus, but Caldwell-Pope read the play and cut off the passing lane. Miami fouled to stop the clock, and Caldwell-Pope hit both shots to stretch the lead to three.
That was one of two key moments in the final seconds where Butler came up a bit short. On the very next Heat possession, Butler forced up an off-balance three with Aaron Gordon draped all over him—even though there were still 14 seconds on the clock. The shot missed badly, essentially ending any hopes of a Miami comeback.
Even if Butler had made those two final plays and the Heat lived to fight another day, it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which Miami could have won this series. The Nuggets were better in too many aspects. Critics will say that upsets by the lower-seeded Lakers and Heat paved an easier road to the title for Denver than for previous champions, but the Nuggets were far and away the most impressive team in these playoffs. Jamal Murray’s untimely injury delayed their emergence as a dominant title contender. Now that they’re at full strength, the rest of the league is on notice.
Buy now: Sports Illustrated’s Denver Nuggets Commemorative Issue
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Mike Breen takes issue with being called “the voice of the NBA.” Listen to Breen’s appearance on a May episode of Jimmy Traina’s SI Media podcast.
- The Giants and Raiders actually need their star running backs. Conor Orr writes about why those franchises should pay Saquon Barkley and Josh Jacobs.
- An antitrust expert explains to Alex Miceli why the proposed LIV-PGA merger could be shut down as a monopoly. The U.S. Senate yesterday started looking into the potential alliance.
- Albert Breer speaks with Jaguars president Mark Lamping about whether the team’s planned overhaul of its stadium will decide the franchise’s future in North Florida.
- The Pelicans are reportedly looking to swing a major trade in the NBA draft.
- Tom Verducci writes about Jacob deGrom’s bittersweet pitching career.
The top five...
… post-championship Nikola Jokić moments:
5. Throwing Jamal Murray in the training room pool.
4. Meekly trying to spray a bottle of champagne.
3. Realizing his phone was blowing up with too many texts.
2. “On Sundays, I have my horse racing.”
1. His disappointment upon learning the parade will be Thursday and he can’t go home until after that.
SIQ
Who is the only Japanese-born player to hit for the cycle in an MLB game? (Today is the anniversary of the achievement.)
- Shohei Ohtani
- Ichiro Suzuki
- Hideki Matsui
- Nori Aoki
Yesterday’s SIQ: The Baseball Hall of Fame’s first induction ceremony was held June 12, 1939, honoring 11 living inductees from a group of 25 players, managers and executives who had been elected over the previous four years. Of the 12 players elected through BBWAA up to that point, who received the smallest share of the vote?
- Walter Johnson
- Willie Keeler
- George Sisler
- Cy Young
Answer: Willie Keeler. He received 75.5% of the vote in 1939, just above the 75% threshold required for induction, after falling short in each of the previous three years.
Balloting to fill the new Hall of Fame began in 1936, when writers selected five of the most impressive players in the history of the sport to represent the first Hall of Fame class: Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth.
Starting a hall of fame from scratch also meant that some inner-circle legends were left out on the first ballot, including Cy Young. Can you believe that? The guy whose name is on one of baseball’s most prestigious awards today was not elected in the first year of balloting. He appeared on just 49.1% of ballots that year and barely snuck in with 76.1% of the vote on the second go-around. Tris Speaker and Nap Lajoie also fell short that first year but were elected in their second attempt.
The first year of voting also sparked one of the Hall of Fame’s most enduring arguments: Who deserves to be a unanimous selection? Cobb fell four votes short of being a unanimous choice, and Ruth and Wagner were 11 votes shy. The results of the balloting shocked those in the room when the votes were being tabulated.
“The committee was amazed,” the Associated Press reported at the time. “Vote counting stopped momentarily for a discussion of how anyone could leave the great Ruth off the list of immortals. The same happened when Cobb missed his first vote.”
