This is the on-site version of FTW’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Robert Zeglinski.
Let’s make one thing clear.
The Denver Nuggets wouldn’t be one win away from the NBA title tonight if they didn’t have the services of both Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. All postseason, Jokic and Murray have worked in concert to skillfully cut up opposing defenses. Watch these gentlemen play together, and it is no wonder the Nuggets seem destined for a championship.
Somehow, Jokic and Murray have been even better in the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. In the biggest series of their lives, with championship rings on the line and that good ol’ Larry O’Brien trophy hanging in the balance, Jokic and Murray have been unflappable.
They’ve also, in turn, made the Finals MVP conversation with oddsmakers and fans alike far more intriguing than it has any right to be.
Let’s start with (the somewhat heavily favored) Jokic.
For outside observers attuned to Nuggets basketball, Jokic humbling the Heat in the low post, the high post, from behind the arc and the top of the key (read: everywhere) isn’t surprising. He’s the game’s top big man, and Miami has no real answer for his impeccably versatile skill set. Jokic knows it, even if he tries to put up a humble front. This series has more or less played out exactly how anyone who understands Jokic’s game expected it to — casual dominance from an all-time great who makes everything look so easy.
But it’s Murray’s play — especially as a facilitating and creative point guard — that’s elevated the Nuggets (pun intended) over the Heat. If Murray notches another double-digit assist effort tonight, he will have been the first player in NBA Finals history to enjoy five such games like that in a series.
Not even historic point guard greats like Magic Johnson or Oscar Robertson or Isaiah Thomas or John Stockton or Jason Kidd or Bob Cousy (takes a breath) managed such a feat on the NBA’s biggest stage. While running the Nuggets’ explosive offense on his whims and his whims alone, Murray is in a position for an exclusive club all to his own.
He’s simply been that special and that good.
And yet, the discussion around this year’s Finals MVP is more or less over for me.
While not by a mile, per se, it should be Jokic by a significant margin. Barring a bonkers 50-point triple-double from Murray while his teammate simultaneously wilts at the moment (not likely), it is rightfully inevitable that the already legendary Jokic will add the Finals MVP Award to his teeming trophy case.
None of what the Nuggets accomplish, even Murray’s adaptiveness at point guard, is possible without Jokic. Every time the battle-tested Heat have landed a massive body blow on Denver, it’s been Jokic spearheading the answer.
He’s set the tone as a relentless scorer at the rim with a mind-bogglingly soft touch. He’s found and created looks and angles for his Nuggets teammates that I guarantee almost no one else in the league’s current pantheon could even fathom. And when Jokic’s offensive game has been “off” (by his high standards, anyway), he’s brilliantly used kicked-ball violations to Denver’s defensive advantage.
For the past three years, Jokic has morphed into one of the more unique superstars we’ve ever seen. He’s added two MVP trophies to his resume and turned the Nuggets into a must-watch team every single night. In a sense, these playoffs have been a wonderful culmination of all of his efforts since the turn of the decade.
This spring and this Finals series have been Jokic’s magnum opus. So save your money.
Because the Finals MVP will be his exclamation point.
Quick Hits: Aaron Rodgers at the Tonys … a Pirates pitcher’s frisbee-like throw … and more.
Credit: CBS
- Aaron Rodgers was at the 2023 Tony Awards, and he looked so out of place.
- The Pirates’ Mitch Keller unveiled a jaw-dropping sweeping pitch that somehow broke over two feet.
- Everyone knows who Charles Barkley is except Jack Eichel, apparently.
- My pal Prince Grimes has a fascinating retrospective on the (inevitable?) downfall of the Florida Finals underdogs.
