Paul Klee: Nikola Jokic did it his way in leading Denver Nuggets to first NBA title

Jun. 12—The Joker did it his way.

With his wedding ring tied to his shoelaces, Nikola Jokic carried the Nuggets and their long-suffering fans to Denver's first NBA championship Monday night. With his adorable 1-year-old daughter Ognjena cradled in his tree-trunk arms, Jokic accepted the gold trophy as NBA Finals MVP.

Pure gold.

The Nuggets beat the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5. The noise that boomed from Ball Arena could have awakened the ghosts of McNichols Sports Arena. The Nuggets are NBA champs.

"The job is done," Jokic said. "We can go home."

Not so fast, Big Moses. A championship parade 56 years in the making is scheduled for Thursday.

It's Denver's first, but it won't be the last.

While it sounds like the talking heads at ESPN already are tired of the Nuggets, they better get used to June in LoDo. Before the champagne had dried on his quarter-zip, coach Michael Malone tossed out the "D" word as the next step for Jokic and the reigning world champs.

"The last step after (becoming) a champion is to be a dynasty," Malone said.

Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon are all 24 to 28 and locked in with the Nuggets through at least two more seasons. Monday night felt like a start, not a conclusion.

"We're not satisfied with just one," Malone said.

After 47 years in the NBA and nine more in the ABA, Nuggets fans can say what's never been said around these hills. The Nuggets are No. 1. What made the summit even sweeter was the long climb itself. There was an 11-win season. Carmelo Anthony forced his way out. Others never sniffed Denver as a destination. And it was about the time Joker scored a floater in the lane in the fourth quarter that I began to worry for the condition of downtown come Tuesday.

You made it, Nuggets fans. It's real. The curse has been lifted.

"You need to be bad," Jokic described the process. "Then you need to be good. Then you need to fail. When you fail, you figure it out."

Jokic did the heavy lifting. The best player in the world had 28 points, 16 rebounds and four assists. He walked straight to the handshake line to compliment the opponent, a very Joker thing to do. He deflected all the praise to his teammates, another very Joker thing to do.

That's his way.

"He's one of the all-time best players to ever play," said Porter, who overcame his shooting struggles to get 16 points and 13 rebounds.

Jokic averaged 30.1 points, 13.3 rebounds and 9.7 assists in the playoffs. He had the third-highest player efficiency rating in a postseason, trailing only LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

His tour de force through the NBA playoffs reminded of Joe Sakic's 34 points in a single Stanley Cup postseason and the entire Broncos defense rampaging to Super Bowl 50.

No flukes here. With a 16-4 record in the playoffs, the Nuggets had the second-fewest losses in a title run over the last two decades. (The Durant-Curry Warriors went 16-1 in 2017.) The Nuggets were a train departing from Union Station with only one destination in mind.

On free throws, Jokic glanced down at the wedding ring dangling from his shoelaces.

Charging through a gantlet of big men that included Minnesota's Rudy Gobert, the Lakers' Anthony Davis and Miami's Bam Adebayo, Jokic was so dominant two of the three elite defenders were moved off Jokic. They combine for 14 all-defense teams, 10 All-NBA awards and almost 21 feet of tall. And they had no chance.

"I'm going to ask the coaches for a couple extra weeks off," Jokic said.

I remember Jokic's first practice in Denver like it was yesterday. On October 10, 2015, he danced through a Mikan drill under a coach's watchful eye. When the coach turned his back to work with another player, Joker tagged him with a ball and pretended he wasn't the culprit.

Nothing has changed.

Jokic doesn't fit the mold of a modern sports star. He's declined offers from NBA friends to set up an Instagram account. He believes personal stats aren't worth the paper they're printed on. His way is a wedding ring on his shoes and baby girl using the MVP trophy as a bongo drum.

Jokic now joins John Elway, Joe Sakic and Missy Franklin as Colorado's greatest champions.

Why were Nuggets tickets going for $865 simply to get into the door? Nuggets lifers weren't sure this day would ever come. Take Tom Collins, a stats man for visiting radio crews since 1984, long enough he remembers when play-by-play men would sneak cigarette puffs at McNichols Sports Arena and Nuggets villain John Stockton was coming off the Jazz bench.

"You kind of wonder if it's ever going to happen," Collins said.

Twelve-year-old me wondered the same — until Joker, then everything Nuggets changed.

Jokic did it his way. The Nuggets obliged.

SuperMascot Rocky went 3-for-3 on his halfcourt shot in his NBA Finals debut.

Let the jokes and the good times roll.

Setting down a tall boy of Michelob Ultra, his undershirt soaked in champagne, Jokic celebrated right along with millions of Nuggets fans who waited a half-century for Monday.

Then he stopped mid-sentence. Jokic led the NBA playoffs in points, rebounds, assists and Dad jokes.

"I'm burping," Joker said. "I'm sorry."

Fire up the firetrucks. Make sure the three Jokic brothers get their own. It will be the Nuggets' first, but it won't be their last.