Denver Defeats Miami in Game 1 of NBA Finals
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NBA Championship Finals started with a fairly solid 104-93 home win by his favorite, the Denver Nuggets, over the Miami Heat, and another round of feats from prominent Serbian Denver center Nikola Jokic.
The outcome of this match to a person who does not follow the NBA, but judges the alignment in the series, only by glancing at the history of the opponents encountered in it, could seem like a curious event. Miami is one of the most stable teams of this century. She has three championship titles within it. The previous one, however, was mined exactly ten years ago, but after it the club got to the final confrontations three more times. And five players at once have their experience, that is, about half of the backbone of the Miami squad.
Denver is a completely different case. This is basically his first major breakthrough. And it seems to be the favorite of the Denverites can not be considered. But in reality, of course, everything is not so at all.
On the contrary, Miami’s jump today, contrary to all forecasts, is an amazing event, in fact, unprecedented for the NBA. The fact is that this team this time barely penetrated into the cup stage. To get there, she, who finished in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, had to cut herself in the so-called play-ins invented by the basketball league – play-offs. And “Miami” almost cut off in them, immediately losing to the “Atlanta Hawks”, but then, being on the verge of failure, taking over the “Chicago Bulls”, which was inferior in the score three minutes before the siren.
And then amazing things began to happen. In the opening round, Miami defeated the best club in the East in the regular season, the Milwaukee Bucks, and then passed the New York Knicks and the flamboyant Boston Celtics.
Everything is easier with Denver. He just won the regular season in the Western Conference and positioned himself, despite the formally modest background, as one of the main contenders for the title, confirming quotes in every round. He confirmed them in the match that opened the final.
In it, quite predictably, the player who, without exception, was considered almost a key factor in the series, turned out to be at the forefront of it. It’s Denver’s center Nikola Jokic. Miami also has a clear leader – always adding Jimmy Butler to the playoffs, but still he does not attract attention as much as Jokic.
The Serb has long been recognized in the NBA as a phenomenon for a set of qualities that is chic for a player.
Of course, he is good in the fight under the basket, he scores a lot, but he can also act extremely subtly, passing no worse than professional playmakers. The recognition was sealed, so to speak, officially – with two awards to the most valuable basketball player in the NBA in 2021 and 2022. The third in a row Jokic did not get. This season, she was intercepted by another “center” – Joel Embid of the Philadelphia 76ers (the Serbian became the second according to the results of the vote). But if, being the best among the best, Nikola Jokic could not make his club take off in the playoffs (in the draw before last, Denver stumbled in the second round, in the past – in the first), now everything grows together with him and the team how to.
The statistics perfectly tell about the form of Nikola Jokic. He came to the finals with double figures in points, rebounds and assists per game. Only two great legends have managed such a trick before – Wilt Chamberlain in 1967 and Magic Johnson in 1982. The usual triple-double in the assets of Jokic, whose connection with defender Jamal Murray works great, and in the first match of the final against Miami. In it, he accelerated for quite a long time, in the first three quarters he only attacked someone else’s ring five times, but in the end he finished the meeting with 27 points, 14 assists and ten rebounds, leaving no doubt that the spring tone has not gone away.
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