Denver Nuggets Forward Nikola Jokic. Photo: Photosport
The Denver Nuggets have won basketball's NBA title for the first time.
Denver beat the Miami Heat 94-89 in game five in Denver to take the best of seven series 4 games to one and end a 47 year championship wait for the city.
With a raucous capacity crowd packed into Ball Arena ready to celebrate, the Nuggets were once again led by Nikol Jokic, the Serbian big man scoring a double-double of 28 points and 16 rebounds and was named the Most Valuable Players of the Finals.
The eighth-seeded Heat had defied the odds throughout the postseason, taking out the Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics but the odds were stacked against them in game five.
Of the 36 teams that have fallen behind 3-1 in an NBA Finals only one, the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers, came back to claim the NBA title.
Making the task even more daunting, Ball Arena has been a virtual fortress for the Nuggets, who were 9-1 at home during the postseason - the one loss however coming to Miami in Game Two.
-Reuters
