DENVER — The clock was ticking, on a long and fruitless basketball dry spell in town, and on the 2023 NBA Finals.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope took the ball, saw the remaining seconds, and began to dribble, dribble, dribble.
Aaron Gordon grabbed his head with two hands and wore an astonished look while he staggered around the floor.
The Nuggets won 94-89, closing out the series in five games, and therefore there was really no doubt.
It is for coach Doug Moe and those entertaining teams he coached in the 1980s and early ’90s.
And for the great Nuggets scorers Alex English and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and, finally, for Dikembe Mutombo clutching the ball after a massive upset of the top-seeded Seattle Super Sonics in 1994 in what was the franchise’s most vivid postseason moment.
The seed for this team was built, improbably so, with the 41st selection in the 2014 draft.
That pick came from the Knicks in the Carmelo Anthony trade at the February deadline in 2011, a trade that was then, and now, a bad move by New York.
Nobody wanted Bruce Brown in free agency last summer, and Caldwell-Pope arrived from the Wizards for Monte Morris and Will Barton in a swap of role players that benefitted Denver more than Washington.
“I feel really fortunate that our journey has been one of patience, one of drafting really well and developing those players, and then adding the right pieces around them,” Malone said.
The Nuggets made the choice of drafting and acquiring key players and never strayed from the blueprint, even when Porter and Murray dealt with season-ending injuries.
“I knew if we were going to win one in Denver, which has never been done before, we’d have to try something different,” said Josh Kroenke, president of the Nuggets.
It must be good to be a member of the new NBA champion ownership group, because winning championships is nothing new to chairman Stanley Kroenke, his wife Ann Walton Kroenke and son Josh.
Josh Kroenke oversees the day-to-day of the Nuggets and has made a habit of hiring the right people to run the organization.
“It’s always neat to compete against the best teams in the world in other sports, and so when you’re able to win, it’s a great feeling because you’re going up against other great organizations,” Josh Kroenke said.
This was not only a victory for the Nuggets but for Murray and Porter, who dealt with potentially devastating injuries that robbed each of a season-plus.
Porter struggled with his 3-point shot throughout the series but in Game 5 contributed in another ways — rebounding, short jumpers, defense.
I still have different moments where I’m tentative, but I’ve just gotten so much better at that and just putting that behind, not just me, Mike too.
And while he struggled at various times in this series — none more than the first three quarters in Game 5 — Butler made it close Monday, and that’s all you can ask.
Miami went to Butler once more in the moment of truth; he drove the lane, became trapped, then forced a pass out of the post that was intercepted in the final minute.
And perhaps the Nuggets already had their major injuries, although back injuries, in the case of Porter, are always tricky.
This much is for certain: There’s a slow changing of the guard in the West.