Denver Nuggets Win 1st NBA Finals Championship

DENVER -- Nikola Jokic didn't win his third straight Most Valuable Player award this season, but he still ended up with an MVP trophy after all. In addition to getting the championship he has coveted, Jokic was named NBA Finals MVP after the Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat 94-89 in Game 5 at Ball Arena.

In the biggest fourth quarter in Denver Nuggets history, veteran center DeAndre Jordan had a message for star point guard Jamal Murray during a timeout. "Go win this game," Jordan said to Murray. "Twelve minutes, bro, and you in history.

Murray, Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets heeded the call for history Monday night, coming up with championship-winning plays in the final minutes of Game 5 to bring home the Larry O'Brien trophy for the first time in the franchise's 47 years.

Jokic is the first player to lead all players in points (600), rebounds (279) and assists (190) in a single postseason, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

During the chaos of the championship celebration, Jokic dragged Murray into the training room and shoved the point guard into a pool. Jokic followed him in.

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra didn't hide from the truth after watching the Denver Nuggets end his team's championship dream.

"There's no regrets on our end," Spoelstra said after the Nuggets hoisted the Larry O'Brien Trophy. "There's just sometimes where you get beat, and Denver was the better basketball team in this series. That's about as hard -- I don't know how long it would take me to go through the autopsy of this final game, but I would say that it will probably rank as our hardest, competitive, most active defensive game of the season, and it still fell short."