NBA 2023 Finals: Nuggets one win away from their first championship as a team, take a commanding 3-1 lead against Heat

The Denver Chunks were the weighty top favorites to win this NBA Finals, and they are showing why.

The Chunks took a 3-1 series lead on Friday night with their 108-95 success over the Miami Intensity.

Denver is presently one win away from their most memorable NBA title in franchise history.

The Pieces drove by four at halftime yet opened up the second from last quarter on a 19-10 race to take a noteworthy lead, their biggest of the night up to that point. Miami had the option to scale their shortfall back down to six places, however Denver shut the third on another 12-5 run, recapturing their important lead. They won the third with an 86-73 lead.

However, the Heat started the fourth quarter in a desperate state and went on an 8-0 run to close the gap to five points. However, Denver went on another run to ice it, and that was their closest thing.

Miami trailed by six with 6:34 remaining, but Denver responded with a 17-6 run over the next five minutes to take the largest lead of the night, 17 points.

Aaron Gordon of Denver scored 27 points in the game, connecting on 11 of 15 attempts and going 3-for-4 from three-point range. Bruce Brown scored 21 points, 11 of which came in the final 5:07, while Nikola Jokic scored 23 points and grabbed 12 boards.

Denver made half of its three-point attempts (14 of 28), while Miami only made eight of its 25 attempts (32.0%).

Bam Adebayo (20) and Jimmy Butler (25) scored 45 of Miami’s 95 points together.

The Chunks would be only the fifth first-time boss of the 21st 100 years, and the first since the 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers.

Ironically, if the Heat win the series again, they will become just the second team in the Finals (along with that Cavs team) and the first team in any playoff series to do so since the team they are trying to beat twice in 2020.

As Game 5 returns to Denver, Nuggets fans will have the opportunity to witness their team win the Larry O’Brien Trophy on their own home court on Monday night.