NBA Finals: Serbian star Nikola Jokic steered his team Nuggets to a maiden NBA Finals win as they fended off Miami Heat in a thrilling NBA Finals Game 5 victory. Jokic scored 28 points and 16 rebounds as the Nuggets capped off their dominating playoffs run with a 94-89 win at Ball Arena. Despite, a late fightback, the Western Conference toppers Nuggets clinched the best of seven games in the fifth outing.
Nuggets only lost one game in the finals and that came in the second one when they tied along with Nuggets with a 111- 108 win. The Western Conference toppers kept their dominance intact with two wins of 109-94 and 108-95, before clinching the fifth game.
"The job is done," Jokic said after the game. "We can go home now," he added. Michael Porter Jr. scored 16 points and 13 rebounds Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 14 and 11, respectively. The Nuggets trailed 51-44 after the first half and then led by three points in the third quarter. They entered the fourth quarter one point behind on 70 before Jokic and Murray rose to the occasion to collect points. Butler scored 13 points in the final period for Heat to revive their comeback but Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope took Nuggets over the line in the last moments.
"Those last three or four minutes felt like a scene out of a movie. Two teams in the centre of the ring throwing haymaker after haymaker, and it's not necessarily shot-making. It's the effort. Guys were staggering around because both teams were playing so hard," Erik Spoelstra Heat coach said after the final.
"That's what this league should be about. There are no regrets on our end. Sometimes you get beat, and Denver was the better team in this series. I don't know how long it would take me to go through the autopsy of this final game, but it will probably rank as our hardest, competitive, most active defensive game of the season, and it still fell short," he added.
