Warriors face new reality as West runs through Nuggets
When Steph Curry caught J.R. Smith’s clanker of a 3-point attempt at Quicken Loans Arena in the final seconds of the 2015 NBA Finals, he turned to the Warriors bench, slapped the ball, threw it in the air and began a celebration 40 years in the making.
There was no telling a dynasty had begun.
Michael Jordan was 28 years old when he won his first NBA title in 1991. Shaquille O’Neal was 28 when he took home the title in 2000, and LeBron James was 27 when he became a champion in Year 2 of the Miami Heatles. Steph Curry had recently turned 27 before that June night in Cleveland, but he looked closer to 17.
The rest of the basketball world viewed the Warriors as a team one year ahead, one who benefited from some luck along the way. A jump-shooting team couldn’t last for long. This was a blip and order would restore soon enough.
They were a year ahead. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were 25. Golden State was sent home in the first round the previous year by the Los Angeles Clippers, and Steve Kerr was a first-year coach.
The Denver Nuggets lost to the eventual-champion Warriors in the first round last season, though they never laid down and led by 10 points going into the fourth quarter of a series-ending Game 5. Michael Malone was in his seventh season running the show in the Rocky Mountains. The highly respected head coach had seen what was building into the 2023 champions.
“Yeah, I think it's scary to think about that,” Malone said after being eliminated by the Warriors last season when asked about what his team would like when fully healthy. “I go back to last season before Jamal [Murray’s] injury in this building. We felt we had a legitimate chance to win a championship last year. Unfortunately it just wasn't in the cards for us. Jamal suffers the ACL. Earlier this season Michael Porter Jr. suffers a back injury. You're playing without two max players that have both helped us advance out of the first round the last three years.
"When they're getting back and they're healthy, I think that's going to make us a deeper, more talented team. I'm excited about that, I really am. I think the future is very, very bright for the Denver Nuggets.”
Malone and the Nuggets on Monday night in Denver celebrated a championship 47 years in the making. A streak was broken, but the success is nothing new for this franchise.
The Nuggets over the last five seasons have won 248 regular-season games and 37 playoff games. The Warriors in that span put together 208 wins in the regular season and another 36 in the playoffs. Still, the Warriors owned the West throughout that time.
No other team produced more fear in their opponents when they were right. Everybody saw 2019-20 as a lost season and the next season Curry could only carry so much on his back. Winning it all with Durant long gone was an added layer to Curry’s legacy and selling point to the Warriors’ dynasty.
Our only collective question about the Nuggets wasn’t talent based. It was needing to see to believe, waiting for them to put it all together when healthy.
There’s a new best in the West now, and the Nuggets are primed to keep their foot on the pedal.
Nikola Jokić is 28, isn’t slated for unrestricted free agency until 2028 and is building an argument as the greatest big man in basketball history. Green and the Warriors took Jokić out of his comfort zone last season in the playoffs and forced him to be a scorer first, averaging 31.0 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.8 assists in five games. Here are the players who joined him in the starting lineup: Monte Morris, Will Barton, Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon.
“I just told him thank you for making me better,” Draymond Green said of Jokić when asked about their post-game embrace after the series. “It's absolutely incredible to play against a guy like that – incredible, incredible talent. Just told him thank you for making me better. It's an honor and a pleasure to play against someone so talented and so skilled.
“Usually when you have a guy that's that talented and that skilled, they are a little soft. He's far, far from soft. You know, he's an absolutely incredible player.”
Jokić’s running mate Jamal Murray is 26 and was recovering from a torn ACL last season, returning to invoke Shaq-Kobe highlight reels the way he and his bag man can be unstoppable together. Murray and Jokić aren’t a normal duo. They’re an actual tandem, playing through each other in the old-school small-big way, but in the modern game. He’s under contract for two more seasons and the Nuggets now are showing they’re willing to open their pockets.
Michael Porter Jr., who like Jokić and Murray, was drafted by Denver, is only 24. Porter's shot went ice-cold in the Finals, though he salvaged it with a 16-point, 13-rebound performance in the final game.
From a roster-building standpoint, the Nuggets perfectly built a team around one of the most unique stars ever. Gordon now is 27, had a case for being an All-Star this season and is under contract for at least two more seasons. The deciding plays in the end were Bruce Brown crashing the glass off a Murray miss and putting the ball back in to give the Nuggets a 90-89 lead with 90 seconds left, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope stealing a bad Jimmy Butler pass at the 27-second mark and the score still the same, draining two free throws for a three-point advantage.
Brown has a player option this summer and could be a cap casualty. The same goes for KCP the next summer. And the Nuggets might already have a replacement ready to fill the gaps.
Rookie Christian Braun, 22, won three straight high school state championships, a NCAA championship last year as a Kansas Jayhawk and has been crowned a champion once again, this time in a Nuggets uniform. Braun was the difference in Game 3, scoring 15 points off the bench. The 6-foot-7 shooting guard has three years of college experience under Bill Self and already is a year older than Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga, two former Warriors lottery picks who are going into their third seasons.
Malone shouted to Nuggets fans, “We’re not satisfied! We want more!” Not one ounce of that is fake from a coach who’s the life form of a human Red Bull.
The Warriors are opening a new chapter of their own, and the road runs through Denver.
Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast
