Down in the mud, a mile high

The Denver Nuggets are NBA champions.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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The Denver Nuggets prevailed over the Miami Heat in an absolutely ridiculous Game 5 to close out the series and win the franchise’s first-ever championship.

Watching a fanbase celebrate their first title is extraordinary, and the same can be said for watching how NBA players react to their first championship.

It’s just beautiful. Word to all of these first-time champions, both the stars like Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and the role players like Uncle Jeff and DeAndre Jordan (who got minutes in Game 5!) and Bruce Brown and Ish Smith. And word to the underrated two-time champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who had some enormous plays down the stretch.

The game ended in dramatic fashion for an extra little surprise factor, but the series was well in hand, and the Nuggets seemed to be concerned primarily with ending the series at home to get maximal joy out of the situation. The NBA will label pretty much any end-of-game highlight reel “insane” or “wild” or “crazy.” The end of this game earned that s—t.

What struck me is just how muddy Miami was able to make the whole game. This is their typical M.O., even when the shots aren’t falling (and they were not falling), but to be able to do it from tip in an elimination game in the Finals against a team that has more or less been in control for all but a single quarter of the series was impressive. Miami was ultra physical with Denver to the point of actually frustrating the Nuggets, something no other team has done the entire postseason. Nikola Jokic briefly appeared to be losing his cool. Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray, two players who are rarely demonstrative with the officials, briefly lost their cool.

Miami was desperately grasping Denver’s proverbial ankles, trying to keep them from ascension, trying to keep them in the mud. But with some dirty work of their own, the Nuggets rose above.

Michael Porter Jr., have a f—king game. After struggling most of the series, he was physical and BIG and emotional as he cut to the rim and kept taking threes even when his shot abandoned him. He’s bigger than any Heatian getting minutes in this series, and by Game 5 he figured out how to exploit his height advantage without hitting threes.

Nikola Jokic has long realized that he’s the biggest player on the court, and there were moments all the way back in Game 1 when Jokic used his size advantage over the defensive ace Bam Adebayo in the post. Jokic went back to that well in the fourth quarter, against Adebayo and against pretty much any guard that switched onto the two-time MVP.

The lesson here is that size can keep your head above the mud. And there are a million lessons about effective team-building and the modern NBA paradigm that we can learn from the Nuggets. We’ll talk about that over the next few weeks.

For now, a tip of the Tyler Herro bucket hat to the Heat for an incredible playoff run and a standing O for the Nikola Jokic and Denver Nuggets, champions of the world. Let’s get crazy.

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Still Waiting

The Nuggets become the 20th NBA franchise to win a championship. I count 13 current NBA fandoms without a title now:

• L.A. Clippers

• Minnesota Timberwolves

• Charlotte Hornets

• New Orleans Pelicans

• Memphis Grizzlies

• Orlando Magic

• Utah Jazz

• Phoenix Suns

• Brooklyn Nets

• Indiana Pacers

• Oklahoma City Thunder

• Atlanta Hawks

• Sacramento Kings

The last three franchises all technically have titles, but not in their current locations and not in the past four decades. So they are in the club.

Who’s next?

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Thank You!

And now, a brief moment of gratitude:

Thank you for riding with Good Morning It’s Basketball, whether you’re an OG reader or this was your first season on the train. Writing a daily newsletter can be a grind, not so much during the playoffs when every game has enormous stakes and all of the attention, but through the offseason and regular season for sure.

What keeps me cooking this thing up every morning is the fact that 1,300+ people are handing over some coin to read what I have to say, and another 11,000+ people care enough about what I have to say to invite me into their email inbox once a week. It will never cease to amaze me.

So thank you for making this possible and making it fun. See you tomorrow, and the next day, and two more days after that, and then next Monday and then … you get the picture.

Be excellent to each other.