The Nuggets Break the Curse, Make History
The Denver Nuggets have never been to the NBA Finals and every time they came close, the Los Angeles Lakers were there to deny them.
Did you know the Lakers have been Finals-blocking the Nuggets since the 80s?
In 1984-85, the Denver Nuggets were the second-best team in the Western Conference.
They were led by 31-year-old Alex English who averaged 28 points per game and helped them win 52 games.
But he wasn’t just a regular-season star. He was outstanding in the playoffs as well, averaging 30 points per game.
English, along with Calvin Natt, led Denver to victories against the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz in the first and second rounds, respectively.
But his fantastic play wasn’t enough for them to get past the Western Conference Finals.
The Nuggets faced off against the Lakers in the showdown of the best of the west and couldn’t handle the offensive onslaught of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and James Worthy.
Combined, the L.A. superstars averaged 55.4 points per game (which seems low nowadays but was actually 42 percent of the team’s points) and led L.A. to a 4-1 victory.
And this was just the beginning of the curse.
The Nuggets didn’t return to the conference finals until 2008-09 -over two decades later. But the story remained the same.
Led by Carmelo Anthony, this Denver team made easy work of the first and second rounds.
They started off by beating the New Orleans Hornets 4-1 and then the Dallas Mavericks 4-1.
But it wasn’t so easy in the Western Conference Finals. They had to deal with two Lakers’ superstars -Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.
Carmelo (averaged 27 points per game) and his crew played well in the postseason but it wasn’t enough to keep up with these two.
Kobe dumped 34 points per game on them and the Nuggets lost in six games.
It would be a little while until the Denver Nuggets made it back to the conference finals (in 2020).
This time around, they had a new squad and identity.
They were now led by a revolutionary big man in Nikola Jokic and a super scorer in Jamal Murray.
Denver faced challenges early in this postseason, but eventually made their way to the conference finals.
They played the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers in the first two rounds and won both series in seven games.
But like years past, those victories didn’t matter as they got denied from the NBA Finals by the Lakers again.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis led the charge with 58.2 points per game in this beatdown and the Lakers defeated the Nuggets 4-1.
Denver regrouped after getting annihilated and three years later, made it back to the Western Conference Finals, where they once again played their nemesis -the Lakers.
The team kept its core (with the addition of Aaron Gordon) and set out to break the curse.
And after 46 years of getting slapped around by the Lakers, they finally did. The Nuggets swept L.A. out of the playoffs.
Jokic, Murray, and crew brought on a balanced attack and the Lakers couldn’t do anything to stop them.
The Nuggets’ duo poured in shot after shot the entire series, and LeBron and Anthony Davis couldn’t do anything. They were helpless.
With this win, the Nuggets will be making their first-ever appearance in the NBA Finals.
Hopefully, they can make more history by taking home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
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