I remember the first time I started noticing the basketball twitterati that I follow post clips and getting ridiculously excited by the whimsical, magical passing of Nikola Jokic. This was probably in the 2017-18 season, when he took a leap, and then probably reached an apex in 2018-19, when teh Nuggets made the playoffs for the first time in the Jokic era, where he got 1st team All-NBA. Murray hadn't yet broken out, and the Nuggets lost in 7 games to the Spurs, the last great Pop hurrah in reality. It was a defining moment.
I can't say I was on the Jokic train all back then. In the 2018-19 season, he was still a bit plodding, still overweight (which he very much is not now). He did get tired late in games, notably playing for his soon to be genius standards, pretty meekly in the loss to the Spurs. But man could he pass. Truly the greatest passing player I've ever seen since Steve Nash. He shot in this weird, unorthodox way, but it went in way more often than it should. He continued his brilliance the next year, and with Jamal Murray taking a leap in the bubble, the Nuggets announced themselves. It took a while, but three years later they've reached the Rocky Mountain-top.
I don't know the last time I was more pleased to watch a team win - and win in dominant fashion. Sure, would the sports fan in me have been more excited for a 6-or-7 game series? But in the end, watching the Nuggets roll Miami 4-1, after rolling the Lakers 4-0, after embarrassing the Suns in Game 5-6, it was just as good.
The Nuggets are a special team, led by a truly special player. It's so easy to say it now, but Jokic has been this good for three years now. He thoroughly deserved the MVP each of the last two seasons. He didn't have the help needed to go deep, but still did get the Nuggets to the 2nd round in 2021, and a closer than it seemed 5-game loss to the eventual champs last year. This year they were healthy, this year he had the help, so we all could enjoy Jokic's brilliance.
What was even better was to see him play so focused - gone were some of the more whimsical passes, but what was left was exact passing, constant movement and screens, and an ability to dominate games basically on command. He spun a perfect weave over this playoff run, cementing his legacy for all time.
But what makes the Nuggets truly special is the spate of brilliance that extends beyond him. Jamal Murray has never made an all star game (something that will almost definitely be fixed next year). No matter, he's illuminated brightly on the postseason stage the last two times he's been able, this time calmly draining his patented fall-back jumpers to quell late Heat pushes in Game 4-5. He is the perfect co-pilot for Jokic and a player who truly still has another level to get to.
Aaron Gordon is a perfect role guy in that he is way more talented tahn the average role guy but so committed to that role. You would think a guy who was a star in college, then the man in Orlando, may find it tough to take a fully secondary role. But no, he's found solance in the dominance of defensive excellence, of hitting the occassional shot, of being a matchup nightmare - as he so perfectly showed at the start of Game 1 when he scored 12 first quarter pointrs just bullying smaller players.
Michael Porter, Jr. was an incredible shooter who offered little else. He would get lost too much on defense, he would get passive at times. The fact he was a very, very productive player while shooting like garbage from three in this series was a testament to a work ethic, to a growth rate, to a player who had it all clicked - I can cut and Jokic will get me the ball, I can drive and because I'm 6'10" I can get to the rim, I can contest shots as good as anyone because I have gumby arms. It has all clicked.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown were perfect role players. Switchable, aggressive defenders, better offensive players off the dribble than you would ever expect, or truly ever really need from depth players. But they could do it all. I remember wondering why they traded Mounte Morris and Will Barton basically for KCP, but I wonder no more.
Mike Malone has somehow survived 8 seasons, including his first three not making the playoffs. It's incredible he did last this long, but that makes him the only coach Jokic ever had, Murray ever had, and so many else. He's calm when he needs to be, aggressive when he needs to be, and had his team so well coached to adapt to the Heats' bag of tricks.
The Nuggets should not be a surprise. So many of the NBA-verse extol their 8-game run after picking up Aaron Gordon in teh 2021 trade deadline - a period where they went 7-1. Of course, Murray tore his ACL, short-circuiting what could have been a title team. It took pause for 1.5 years, but they picked right back up. They tormented the league with a passionate exactness and determination that was surprising for a team with a lot of players who would have been called "soft" probably two years prior. It was a dominant run in every way, and even better things are potentially on the horizon.
The top players are locked in, and while they may ahve a decision to make between Porter and Gordon in a couple years, there is a lot of hope on the continued development of Christian Braun (and Peyton Watson, who barely played but people in Denver seem to love). Jokic is going nowhere. His quasi-weird performance-act of being bored with it in front of the cameras was a facade masking a guy who seemed to ahve a total ball when the cameras were more off (see the pool push with him and Murray) and is clearly invested a ton in being a world class basketball player (as his getting himself into shape and better and better every year will attest). Murray can improve further. Porter should get better as he continues to invest in the non-shooting elements of his game (granted, his back could always be an issue). They had a perfect brew of role players, but honestly did before as well, like the Will Barton's and Mounte Morris's were before they were pushed unexpectedly into starting roles.
The Nuggets are a great team, a great organization, with an all-time great at its core. They are the modern league in so many ways. They are the best the NBA had to offer this year, and the best that they NBA may have to offer for a while. It was a long road from NBA twitter guys gushing over magical passes from a sluggish oaf six years ago, to a team that romped its way through the playoffs, but it was a special outcome by a special team at the end of the day.
