The Nuggets celebrate their 2023 NBA championship, clinching the franchise’s first title.
The Denver Nuggets captured the first NBA Championship in franchise history in 2023. The team had been building to that moment for several seasons before finally reaching the mountaintop.
It began in the 2019 season when Nikola Jokić made the leap to stardom and led the team to the playoffs with a 54-win season. It was an eight-win jump from the previous season and signaled that the Nuggets were building something.
The next year, the Nuggets pushed further into the playoffs and advanced all the way to the Western Conference Finals before bowing out to the eventual champion Lakers. It was the kind of playoff run that raised expectations for the franchise and made the following two seasons all the more frustrating for this promising core.
Denver went out in the Western Conference semifinals the following season and then had a tough first-round draw in the 2022 NBA Playoffs, where they faced the eventual champion Warriors. Jokić won MVP in both of those seasons, but it wasn’t quite enough to get Denver over the hump.
The years of playoff experience provided some valuable lessons going into the 2023 season, even if some of the lessons were tough to swallow. Denver went 53-29 during the regular season to capture the No.1 seed in the West and set the table for a deep playoff run.
The Nuggets faced little resistance on their way through the Western Conference side of the playoff bracket. They lost a total of three games in three series with convincing wins over the Timberwolves, Suns and Lakers.
While Denver had a relatively smooth path to get to the Finals, their opponent – the Miami Heat – had to traverse some rugged terrain to reach that stage. The Heat had to fight through the Play-In but once they punched their ticket, they had some momentum. They dispatched of the top-seeded Bucks and beat the Knicks in six games to reach the conference finals, where they had to battle it out with the reigning Eastern Conference Champion Celtics over seven games to make it.
By the time the Finals rolled around, it was clear that it was the Nuggets’ year. Jokić and the team overpowered the Heat and captured the title in five games. The dynamic duo of Jokić and Jamal Murray was incredible. Jokić averaged 30.2 points and 14.4 rebounds per game while Murray poured in 21.4 points and 10 assists per game. That inside-out dual threat posed by Jokić and Murray helped make the Nuggets a matchup nightmare. The athletic duo of Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown provided elite defense and efficient scoring as well.
Even though the 2023 season was the only year in which Jokić did not win MVP between 2021 and 2024, he and the Nuggets took home the ultimate prize of an NBA Championship.
Much of Denver’s core is still together to this day, meaning that Denver’s window to add another championship to its trophy case is still wide open.
