Nuggets perfect drama-free path to spot on big stage

DENVER The Denver Nuggets don’t brawl with other teams or bicker among themselves. It’s been almost a decade since they fired a coach. Their most spectacular highlights often involve sublime skip passes across the court — or a backward, half-court shot from their mascot, Rocky, during a break in the action.

Some might call them downright boring. The Nuggets call it beautiful. Their no-drama way of doing business, both on and off the court, doesn’t grab tons of headlines. But it has set the franchise up for success and brought it to its first National Basketball Association finals in 47 years in the league.

The team that cemented itself into first place in the Western Conference on Dec. 20, then cashed in by making it to the final, is the virtual opposite of those it has mowed down in both the regular and postseasons. Those teams are studded with stars, or in the headlines after big trades, or featuring front-line players who are semiregulars on the police blotter, or filled with injuries and other drama up and down the roster and on the bench.

Even the team they’ll face in the finals, whether it be the Boston Celtics or Miami Heat — who battled in a Game 7 Monday night to see who would face Denver in the finals — is wrapped in a dramasoaked and potentially historymaking series. Less than a week ago, Boston coach Joe Mazzulla — who got the job this season after his predecessor was found to have had an improper relationship with a staffer — was on the hot seat, his team down 3-0 and his ability to coax the best out of a talented roster under question. After a buzzerbeating tip-in to tie the series 3-3, that all changed.

The Nuggets? They swept the Lakers and have been waiting and practising for a week.

“If you’re going to win at a high level, you can’t have distractions,” coach Michael Malone said during one of his team’s many off days between the conference final and the NBA finals, which start Thursday. “You have to have guys that get along — on the court, off the court — and come together and share in a common goal.”

Only minutes after the Nuggets dispatched the Lakers last Monday, all the talk after the game was about LeBron James. In this instance it was whether the NBA’s all-time leading scorer would be back for another season (he turns 39 this year) and how that decision would impact one of the league’s glamour teams going forward.

James, though, made sure to shine some of the spotlight on the Nuggets. “Me and A.D. (Anthony Davis) were talking in the locker room,” James said. “We came to the consensus, this is, if not one of the best teams, probably the best team, we’ve played since we’ve been together for all four years. Just well orchestrated, well put together. They have scoring. They have shooting. They have playmaking. They (have) smarts. They have depth.”

They also have a two-time MVP in Nikola Jokic who is part of a roster that seems, for now at least, immune from the wheelings and dealings that capture headlines and can make or break franchises.

Last off-season, Jokic signed a supermax contract that locks him up through 2028. Jamal Murray, from Kitchener, is signed through 2025. Michael Porter Jr., whose signing of a max contract in 2021 raised some eyebrows considering his history with injuries, is inked with guaranteed money through at least 2026.

“What I also love about this franchise is that, when guys don’t fit into the culture, they’re not here anymore,” Malone said. “We have guys that understand that being selfless is a huge part of being a Denver Nugget and guys who continue to buy into that, whether they’re playing or not playing.”