CHECK YOUR PULSE IF YOU THINK JOKIC, MURRAY AND THE NUGGETS ARE BORING

A five-game dissection of Miami completes one of the NBA’s dominant postseason runs, and the selflessness of Denver's two greats is a salvation amid the big dramas and egos of 21st-century sports

     Sometimes in sports, the championship answer is nothing more than a shrug and a roll of the eyes. If you happen to be bored by the general modus operandi of Nikola Jokic, whose methodical and tactical brilliance on a basketball court is reflected in his indifference toward media attention, it should be obvious now that it’s your problem, not his. No doctor, drug or escape room can help you.

     “I mean, we win,” said Jokic, accompanied by his usual shrug and eyeroll. “I think it’s pretty simple.”

     And what possibly could be wrong with simplicity in a complicated world? Fundamentals as fun? Efficiency as electricity? Gratitude in the altitude?

     What we’ve just witnessed from The Joker and the Denver Nuggets, who finished 16-4 in one of the more dominant NBA postseasons of our lives, is a new way of flourishing in the 21st-century athletic arena. It doesn’t involve drama or bluster or ego clashes. It doesn’t involve social media. It doesn’t involve racial commentary, which seems to encompass every basketball conversation. If you can believe it, the Nuggets have ascended to their first parade after 47 seasons with concepts relatively foreign to modern sport.

     “We are not into it for ourselves. We are into it for the guy next to us. And that’s why this means even more,” said Jokic, his historic run uninterrupted even by confetti during the trophy ceremony in Ball Arena. “This is a great group of people and teammates. We believe in each other and the relationships we have. Yes, the trophy is something. But we have relationships that will last a lot long after we finish our careers.”

     And he meant every word. This is real, not phony. Savor it.

     They don’t care about personal glory, never mind that Jokic is the greatest offensive player on the planet and could market his triple-double machinery into millions — think burgers — and Jamal Murray isn’t far behind in a two-man game that ranks historically. They aren’t overlorded by a coach whose system is the star, with Michael Malone much more a custodian and occasional bad cop than a domineer. Their owner saved the franchise from relocation and is the first to win titles in three of the four major North American sports, all in the last 16 months — yet Stan Kroenke didn’t try to take over the celebration Monday night any more than he did when his Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl and his Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup. And while Jokic and Murray are the notable kings of their sport, audiences also came to know Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr., Bruce Brown, Christian Braun and the Laker who got away from LeBron James, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

     Did someone say selflessness? “We have guys who understand that being selfless is a huge part of being a Denver Nugget,” Malone said. “You have to have guys that get along — on the court, off the court — and come together and share in a common goal.”

     Did someone say camaraderie? “We’re all on a string,” Murray said. “Even if we make a mistake, somebody is there to step up, and if that person makes a mistake, somebody else is there. We’ve done a good job of just playing for each other on both ends of the floor.”

     Did someone say oneness? “That’s just how this team is built,” Gordon said. “We have guys that can step up night in and night out. Sometimes it’s not going to be your night, and sometimes it is going to be your night. This team does a good job finding the people that are kind of in a rhythm and kind of going.”

     And did somebody actually ask Jokic about his legacy amid his long, lost coronation — a Finals MVP award to go with two regular-season MVPs, after a postseason in which he became the first player ever to lead in points (600), assists (190) and rebounds (269) throughout? Is he aware that James, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson never did that? You know what came next.

     Shrug.

     Eyeball roll.

     “To be honest, I don’t think about that much,” he said. “I’m just playing. I’m just playing, and my focus has never been those kinds of records or whatever, whatever the media are putting on me. I’m just trying to win a game. Go step-by-step and play every game to win a game. As simple as that.”

     Persist at your own peril. Asked about another stuffed stat line, matched only by James and Kevin Durant and Tim Duncan, he flashed a thumbs-up and mumbled, “I don’t know. It’s nice, it’s good. I really don’t know what to say.”

     Let Jimmy Butler — good night, Playoff Jimmy — and LeBron and Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo do the talking and the commercials. The culture of the Nuggets is that they win games, period. And they might win so many in the coming seasons, they could be positioned for a dynasty in the city where “Dynasty,” the TV show, reigned with the “Showtime” Lakers and Celtics in the 1980s. As Malone said during the celebration: “I’ve got news for everyone out there. We’re not satisfied with one. We want more! We want more!”

     Later, a coach who was fired in Sacramento and avoided the ziggy in Denver dared to drop the d-word. “You know, Pat Riley said something years ago,” said Malone, invoking the name of the vanquished Miami patriarch. “It talked about the evolution in this game and how you go from a nobody to an upstart, and you go from an upstart to a winner, and a winner to a contender and a contender to a champion. And the last step is after a champion is to be a dynasty.”

     Why not? Jokic, only 28, is just beginning a five-year supermax extension. Murray, 26 and fully healthy and entering his prime, wants to be a Nugget for life. Gordon is 27. Porter is 24. This while the Warriors are in desperation mode, moving forward with an aging core only because Curry foolishly think they still can win … and while the Lakers deal with James’ retirement threats and power play … and while the Grizzlies are decimated by Ja Morant’s demons. The East has been gutted by top teams that frantically fire coaches, leaving the Heat to overachieve but fall woefully short in a five-game Finals that should have been a sweep. This is Denver’s league until further notice, something not thought possible through years of disappointment, in a franchise that only entered the league via the ABA merger. Somewhere, the bearded miner holding a pickax — the original team logo — is partying with George Karl and Doug Moe. This is one hoot of a story.

     “We believed,” said Murray, “and we’ve known how good we were for a few years now.”

     Yet some of the discourse surrounding the Finals — which didn’t feature James or Curry for the only the second time since 2011 — included complaints that the Nuggets were drab and lackluster. Those detractors lack the emotional intelligence to understand what is fantastic about Jokic and Murray, who probably would have won a championship before now if injuries didn’t derail Murray and Porter. The Nuggets are not some form of porn, which their critics seem to want after years of watching the Warriors, James and Durant turn title crusades into daily theatre. Some of these Nuggets yawners, unfortunately, make livelihoods in the media and created more waves when commissioner Adam Silver suggested he’ll suspend Morant for the long term — or when Kyrie Irving said he’d try to recruit James to Dallas — than when Jokic and Murray were the first teammates to record triple-doubles in the same Finals game.

     Know what the talk should have been? Where do they rank among the all-time one-two punches? Jordan and Scottie Pippen are at the top, with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar not far below, alongside Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal and Bill Russell and Bob Cousy. But Jokic and Murray are right there with Duncan and Tony Parker, who won five titles together, and Karl Malone and John Stockton, who won none. We thought past pick-and-roll partnerships were art forms. The Jokic-Murray version, with Joker as the facilitator, is magnificent.

     “It’s greatness, man,” Gordon said. “It’s greatness.”

     “I’ve always felt Nikola and Jamal are one of the most elite and lethal two-man-game combos in the NBA, and we’ve seen that growing for seven years now,” Malone said. “And I think it was on full display. A lot of guys play with each other. Those two guys play for each other and off of each other, and they read each other so well.”

     Explained Murray: “I’d say it’s a trust and a feel. It’s not really X’s and O’s. It’s just reading the game and trusting that the other is going to make the right play. If he throws it to me, he knows and expects what to see from me, and he knows the mood I’m in, the intensity I’m playing with, whether it’s low or high, time and score, and vice versa. I know when he’s overpassing. I know when he’s looking to score. I know when he’s the best player on the floor. I know when he’s taking a second to get into the game. We’re going to figure it out, and it’s a lot of unselfishness. It’s free flowing. If something is there, we go. If it’s not, we don’t force it. He makes tough shots look easy, and he's been doing it for a very long time. I think the consistency doesn't get talked about enough.”

     Something is terribly wrong — bi-coastal snobbery, elite-franchise bias — if the Nuggets aren’t the predominant NBA topic moving forward. Weeks ago, after the Lakers lost Game 2 of a Western Conference finals that ended in a sweep, Malone crucified the national media for focusing on James and the Lakers after their Game 1 loss. What about Jokic’s 30-20-10 triple-double? “The narrative wasn’t about the Nuggets. The narrative was about the Lakers,” he barked. “You put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

     As the Rocky Mountain kingdom got high, the Nuggets were winning 10 of their final 11 games. It was refreshing to witness a rush of new blood to the head of the league’s new snake. While amassing three double-digit wins in the Finals, and taking a 15-point lead in the lone loss, this team completed its mission as if it could keep plundering through the summer and into next season. Across the board, the numbers are impressive, but in a league of jackasses obsessed with NBA Twitter, the best was one from the Joker files.

     Number of social media followers: zero. He has no accounts. Soon enough, he’ll be back in his native Serbia, tending to his horses, doting over his 1-year-old daughter. “The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in basketball,” Kroenke said. “He was described as a chubby teenager. They underestimated his resolve and work ethic. Just an unbelievable player.”

     “I think there’s more to come, actually, from Jok,” Murray said. “I think we haven’t seen a side of Jok that we are going to see where he can be just pure dominance all the way, the whole game, even more than he has been.”

     Even trampled foes are left to salute him. “Jokic is all-time great,” Durant said after he shredded the Suns in the second round. “Going to go down as one of the all-time centers to ever touch a basketball.”

     “I know how great Jokic is,” James said after the Lakers were swept. “He sees plays before they happens. There’s not many guys in our league like that. Everybody gets cracked up into his stats, but I don’t think a lot of people talk about (the cerebral part) of his game because a lot of people don’t understand it. But I do. He’s special.”

     And people think he’s boring. In truth, he’s a salvation. If you don’t think so, you might want check your pulse.

     Your soul, too.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.