I wrote at the beginning of the season that the Nuggets would fulfill their ultimate goal. This time, they earned their just revenge by beating the Lakers in four straight games - with a total point difference of only 24.Īfter bowing to the Lakers, the Suns and the Warriors in three successive playoff series, the Nuggets took their pre-season training in 2022 to San Diego (where the franchise almost ended up 48 years ago), and Malone, Jokic and Murray and Porter, who had come back after severe injuries (knee and back), vowed to win the Nuggets' first title. Yet, they have fallen in four previous Western Conference Finals - to the Sonics in 1978 and the Lakers in 1985, 20.
"I'm hoping for the Nuggets to make it to the Finals this season." "Worst loss of my life," Brown said to me. J" Erving and the team to "beat the (bleep) out of 'em because the refs won't call all the fouls, and Denver will fold." The Nets did, and the Nugs did.
But, as then-coach Larry Brown and I discussed a few weeks ago before the playoffs, I heard Nets coach Kevin Loughery during a timeout order Julius "Dr. The Nuggets held a 22-point lead in the third quarter of Game 6 at the Nassau Coliseum and could have tied the series at 3. That was in 1995-96, shortly before the Nuggets played the New York Nets, who played on Long Island, in the last ABA Finals. They left the league and didn't return until 46 seasons later. The original Nuggets won only 11 games of 62 (with a 1-25 record on the road) when they played in the inaugural season of the National Basketball Association in 1949-50. This one's for Nugget Nation, which faithfully kept believing from 1996 to 2023 that someday pyrite would turn into 24-carat gold.
And this one's for Red McCombs - who unfortunately recently died before seeing his former franchise make the Finals - and Charlie Lyons, Bill Ringsby and Stan and Josh Kroenke, who genuinely love basketball, and exceeded the league salary cap, more than hockey, soccer and even football even though they won't put the team's game on the majority of TVs in Colorado. And for Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown and Jeff Green.Īnd this one is for Carl Scheer and 18 Denver businessmen who bought the Nuggets in partnership for $1 million, borrowed $4.5 mil to keep the franchise from bankruptcy and permanent extinction or a move to San Diego when the NBA agreed to absorb four teams from the ABA in August 1976. This one's also for Byron Beck, Dan Issel, David Thompson, Alex English, Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Dikembe Mutombo, Bobby Jones, Fat Lever, Fatty Taylor, Doug Moe, Larry Brown, George Karl and, yes, Michael Malone.
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